KEVIN MCGOWAN
W7 and V6 are brothers living near Ithaca.
Hi, my name is …Tags with a letter and number large enough to read from a nearby car, plus colored bands around the legs, are among the methods researchers use to identify individual crows so their behavior can be observed and recorded in photos and journals.
The journals date back 23 years, to when Kevin McGowan of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology began observing crows.
The full names of the crows, above, are W7YBAR10 and V6YBAR10.
The brothers share the family name YBAR, meaning they can be found in a small suburban enclave along Yellow Barn Road and surrounding streets near Dryden.
The 10 means they hatched in 2010.
Although reproductively mature, W7 and V6 remain in their home territory and likely
will help raise this year’s young.
Despite their cooperative nature, crows do have hierarchies.
As McGowan was photographing these two crows, he noticed that V6 was clearly but quietly dominant over his brother. W7 would crouch and freeze as V6 marched up to take a peanut from where W7 had been filling his bill.
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COUNTING CROWS
31: estimated worldwide population of Corvus brachyrhynchos, in millions
2,145: number of crows tagged by Anne Clark, Kevin McGowan and their team
19: years lived by the oldest crow in McGowan and Clark’s study
4–6: average lifespan, in years, of a wild American crow
59: age in years of the oldest captive of the species
7: days the West Nile virus takes to kill an infected crow
0: number of crows resistant to the virus
45: percentage decline in crow populations since the West Nile virus came to the United States from Uganda in 1999
1: average weight in pounds of a mature American crow
36: length, in inches, of a crow’s wingspan
1822: year in which the American crow received its Latin name
31: species of crows worldwide
4: subspecies of American crow: Eastern, Western, Florida and Southern
25: miles a crow will fly in a day while collecting food
30–60: speed, in miles per hour, of a crow in flight
100: feet, in height, that researchers climb to reach nests
3–9: number of eggs in a clutch
50: percent mortality of crows in their first year of life
16–18: number of days until chicks hatch
35: days from hatching for a chick to leave the nest
15: maximum number of extended relations who help rear the young
100: years crows have been known to roost in Auburn, N.Y.
63,000: number of crows in the Auburn roost at its peak
1,061: number of crows shot in the 2004 Auburn crow hunt
7: months in New York’s crow hunting season
0: number of crows kept legally as pets
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SPRING 2013
Source: http://www.binghamton.edu/magazine/index.php/magazine/cover-story/in-the-company-of-crows
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