I have really appreciated the discussion on roosting birds. I've learned a lot from it and have enjoyed hearing everybody's different experiences, especially the wren in the patio furniture story!
It's nice to know that a certain percentage of birds have a pretty great place to say safe in horrible weather, like the hail storm that hit my house at about 2 o'clock on Thursday morning.
It's nice to know that a certain percentage of birds have a pretty great place to say safe in horrible weather, like the hail storm that hit my house at about 2 o'clock on Thursday morning.
It was interesting to have cormorants roosting on the ponds again where I live this summer although, with the numbers greater than 200, I grew a little concerned about what effect they might have on our ponds and trees. (To my knowledge, the cormorants started roosting here on the ponds approximately seven years ago when we had eight at the most in an evening.) it is concerning to me that they pull off the leaves and smaller twigs at the end of the branches, they are predominantly in three of our cottonwood trees so that is a lot of denuding for each tree. Also, their droppings were so heavy this summer that the lower limbs of the trees were laden down with white layers on the leaves, actually bending the limbs down towards the ponds.
I've been told that there are a lot of nutrients in their droppings but I've been concerned about the effect of the acidity of the droppings on the ponds.
Nonetheless, there is no adequate description for the calls/sounds and general bellowing that can come from 200 cormorants in the night! Amazing if not a little disconcerting… frightening… indescribable!
Thanks for everyone's input,
Deb Carstensen, Littleton, Arapahoe County
Deb Carstensen, Littleton, Arapahoe County
Sent from my iPhone
Somewhat related to the thread of bird sleep and roosting crows, does anyone know if crowing roosters pay attention to the autumn time change? Do they just fall back in the straw and wait an hour, crow at the same time as they had been, or what?--
Dave Leatherman
Fort Collins
Date: Thu, 5 Nov 2015 14:21:56 -0700
Subject: Re: [cobirds] Re: Roosting Crows
From: dsuddjian@gmail.com
To: cobirds@googlegroups.comCrow roosts are mostly large scale affairs, and they can be hard to find because the crows often stage in varied spots, and some staging areas may not be very close to the actual roost. And crow behavior can be deceptive as the birds may remain at a staging area until well after it begins to get dark after sunset. Based on observations from some roosts I have studied (in California), the actual entry into the final roost trees usually happens in the gloaming (late dusk), when it can be hard to see exactly what is going on. Details that Nan and Jared share about their observations strike me as more related to staging spots than the actual roost. Fly outs from roosts in the morning happen under similarly dark conditions.A large number of crows (1000s) roost in the Conifer area (JeffCo), but I haven't tracked down the spot. And a large number of these crows move from there early in the morning to populate the southern Denver Metro Area, and they probably go elsewhere, too. I see these birds passing over my home region early in the day, and again in the afternoon, although exact routes and numbers seem variable. But they are making long flights and going up into the mountains to spend the night.There is another roost in Park County somewhere up the Deer Creek watershed, up the valley from (appropriately) Crow Hill (County Road 43). Even though that spot is a number of miles from Conifer, I think the two roost areas are related with specific roost locations shifting between these areas in some way that I have not sussed out.David SuddjianLittleton, COOn Thu, Nov 5, 2015 at 1:43 PM, 'Nan Campbell' via Colorado Birds <cobirds@googlegroups.com> wrote:I wonder if the crows that hang around Cheesman Park scatter in smaller groups to roost in the evenings. There are a dozen or so that fly into a big tree near 13th and Steele as the sun sets every day. Could they be a family group?Nan Campbell
Sent from my iPod.Over the past week, several dozen crows have been gathering at the Governor's Mansion in central Denver at dusk, though I haven't confirmed that they roost there overnight. A small number -- fewer than a dozen -- hang around the adjacent Governor's Park during the day. On blustery afternoons, a dozen or so of them will often gather on one of the large apartment buildings east of Governor's and then launch themselves into the wind.Close to 100 often gather at Cheesman Park in the cold months. Now and then, they decide to close out the day by showing off for each other -- flying, tumbling, calling wildly -- which is a pretty spectacular event to observe as the sun sets over the mountains. Even better is when they decide, also at dusk, to mob the resident Red-tailed Hawk as it flies over the park. Even my dog stops, cranes his neck, and takes that in.
It wasn't always like this in my neighborhood. W.H. Bergtold, a physician and ornithologist who lived near Cheesman Park in the early-1900s, reported one crow "flying over Eleventh Avenue, and Corona Street" on December 7, 1913 and another one "seen in Cheesman Park, May 1, 1917."- Jared Del RossoDenver, COOn Thursday, November 5, 2015 at 7:20:24 AM UTC-7, Steve wrote:Hi COBirders,
Just adding to the thread …
When I taught at Air Academy HS I used to regularly see large flights of crows leaving the canyons on the West side of the Academy, heading towards town. Usually this was early morning, in the winter months. Never saw a roost, but hundreds of crows would fly over some mornings.
Steve Brown
Colorado Springs
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