My cocker spaniel Ginger and I came upon the scene in the photo while out walking today around the loop in our housing development. We were a bit far away, but I did my best, as I did not want to disturb them or alert them to our presence.
The photo below is of a murder of crows (the proper term for a gathering of the birds). We have both crows and ravens here in the Estes Park valley on the east side of Rocky Mountain National Park (closed now, because of concerns for the staff during the pandemic). I’ve never been good at telling crows apart from ravens at a distance but these were definitely crows as we got nearer. Almost certainly American crows (Corvus brachyrhynchos). Mrs. Colotim and I saw a raven (Corvus corax) on top of our compound’s wall a few weeks back and that was fully as large as a Red Tail Hawk, if not even bigger. My inability to tell them apart is from a distance like in the photo, where a 17” or so bird (crow) can be a bit hard to tell from a 24” bird (the raven). The National Geographic bird guide says they can be told apart by the thicker bill on the raven (tough to tell from here) and the kite-shaped tail on the raven vs. the fan-tailed tail on the crow (tough again when they’re on the ground). The call is another identifier — the cawing of the crow vs. the croaking of the raven.
Both birds are scavengers. I’ve seen them both flying with chunks of flesh in their mouths from roadkill and they can strip a deer carcass in just a couple of days (perhaps helped along by other scavengers, like coyotes, mountain lions, bobcats and vultures). When the carcass has been stripped, the smaller critters attack the bones for marrow, calcium and other nutrients. Mother nature doesn’t let things go to waste.
Another large bird I’ve been seeing around the house has been the wild turkey (Meleagris gallopavo). A flock of about 30 wandered by the other day (Friday the 13th) and I took several pictures and a few short videos.
Since then I’ve seen portions of this flock but not the numbers from the 13th.
I did have my birdfeeders out for a bit at the beginning of winter to see many Stellars jays, Dark-eyed juncos and plenty of Mountain chickadees. There are also plenty of Red-breasted and White-breasted nuthatches hanging around, trying to hide seeds in the stucco siding. Birds with fewer representatives included Red crossbills, Hairy woodpeckers, Clark’s nutcrackers and some sort of finch with white cheeks (apparently can be really common, but I don’t recall the name). Robins should start showing up soon, and they are also pretty common even while the snow is still on the ground. I had to bring in my birdfeeders once the work started on the decks since that’s precisely where I accessed the feeders from. I’m looking forward to putting up my bird feeder with camera (from www.birdphotobooth.com) but that will likely have to wait until either the hummingbird season or next fall.
One last picture I figured I’d show you from today since the Park was closed.
And fortunately, for all of this, I didn’t need to worry about keeping a safe distance between myself and other humans.