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Big, Black, and Beautiful
| Article
# : |
10566 |
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Section : |
NATURAL SCIENCE
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| Issue
Date : |
1 / 1993 |
1,672 Words |
| Author
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Kevin J. McGowan
Kevin J. McGowan is a research and curatorial associate in
ecology and systematics at Cornell University. He has studied
the social and reproductive biology of crows and jays in
Florida and New York. |
People often have strong opinions about crows. Some are fond of them, perhaps because the crow's apparent intelligence makes it more humanlike than most other birds. Or perhaps it is because of the person's familiarity with a pet crow at some time in their life. Crows are frequently found or taken as nestlings and make vary personable, if illegal, pets.
Most other people generally hate crows. The usual reasons given are that they are noisy, or that they kill little birds. Crows have had a bad reputation for a long time, being portrayed as evil despoilers of corn crops and the brazen tormentors of the poor scarecrow in the Wizard of Oz.
However, even when people are given the facts about the crow's place in the natural world and the small actual impact they have on agriculture or songbird populations, most people continue to cling to their negative impressions of crows. Similar negative feelings about the many different crow species can be found throughout the world. The factors that seem to have the greatest negative impact on people are the crows' appearance: big and black, ugly and evil-looking. (Actually, in the right light crows can be quite beautiful: glossy and iridescent purple.)
Being large and black, ravens and crows often figure prominently in the folklore and mythology of people throughout the world. Though occasionally they are portrayed as wise heroes, usually they are evil portents of misfortune. In much the same way the absence of legs makes the snake unappealing, the physical appearance of crows makes them unpopular. And, as if things were not bad enough, the crow has an ugly, coarse caw, despite being in the same avian order as nightingales, wrens, and mockingbirds.
A winter gathering
American crows are most noticeable when the short winter day comes to an end. Streams of them can be seen flying high overhead, with a sense of purpose. Dozens of the large black birds converge on a single woodlot, filling it with their raucous cacophony. They are at a winter roost, where crows congregate from as far away as 20 miles. Crows that breed near the roost site mix with migrants from thousands of miles away.
On the same winter day that 200 crows may be feeding together in a field of corn stubble, eight others may descend in a suburban backyard. While seven probe about the lawn for worms and grubs, one perches in a nearby tree and
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