Northwestern Crow [Corvus caurinus] ~ 2016 #01

It’s taken me a while but I finally caught up with blogging my 2015 bird project and have tagged and rated all my pictures from last year.  Now I begin to diarize my 2016 findings.  I started off by updating my Access database that I created to track my birding.  Now when I input my sightings, it can tell me right away if it’s a new bird for the year or not.  At the beginning of the year it’s easy to remember which birds I’ve seen already but as the year goes on the memory blurs.  I actually love data (the geek in me is showing ~ lol!), so any excuse I have to keep up with my database skills makes me happy.  But not as happy as getting out there and doing some birding … so I’ll get back on point here.

My number 1 documented bird sighting for 2016 happens to be the same bird that was number 1 in 2015. Not so strange really as the Northwestern Crow is extremely common and I’m pretty sure I see one every day. Especially since they’ve been digging out chafer grubs in the little patch of grass right outside my office. Plus my home and office are in their path to and from their roosting spot.

My first shot of the year of two Crows on the ice at Deer Lake wasn’t very good. Unfortunately it was late in the day and the sun was low in the sky right in front of me. I did get a bit of a better picture a few weeks later though when we went out to the White Rock Pier. Although the black on white is a little bleak.

Crows are pretty intelligent birds and excellent problem solvers. Here’s a link to a video showing one example of their problem solving abilities. They may be common but I find them very fascinating.