As members of the corvid family, crows are considered to be among the most adaptable and intelligent birds in the world.
Crows are generally black, with black beaks and legs, but they can also be black with white, gray, or brown coloring.
Crows have a varied and evolved language. They can mimic the sounds made by other animals, and they learn to associate noises with events, especially with the distribution of food.
Well-adapted to diverse habitats, crows are found across North America. They thrive in cities and suburban areas where they live in close association with humans.
Crows
roost at night in large flocks of up to several thousand during the
winter. During the day, smaller groups may fly up to fifty miles in
pursuit of food.
Crows are omnivorous. They eat whatever is available
to them in their habitat including insects, small amphibians and
snakes, earthworms, eggs and nestling birds, and clams, mussels, and
other salt-water invertebrates. They also scavenge carrion, garbage, and
eat wild and cultivated fruit and vegetables.
With
a preference for coniferous trees, crows build their nests in woods or
isolated trees at least sixty feet above ground. Nests are solidly
built of branches and twigs, and are lined with bark, plant fibers,
mosses, twine, and other found materials.
Crows nests are bulky structures built in trees or bushes. They are made of twigs, lined with bark, grasses, and rootlets.
Paired
male and female crows share in the incubation of four to six eggs
which hatch in eighteen days. Young first fly when they are about one
month old. Frequently, at least one young bird will remain with its
parents through the next nesting season to assist in the care of new
nestlings by bringing them food and guarding the nest.
The female crow lays 4-7 eggs in the nest,
and the male helps incubate them. These eggs are greenish or bluish,
and blotched with brown. Once hatched, the young remain in the nest 6 – 8
weeks, and in their early life they eat almost half of their weight
per day in food, which the parents bring to them.
They are migratory, and will assemble in large flocks in the fall, to travel south.
They
eat a number of pests which are harmful to those same crops, including
cutworms, wireworms, grasshoppers and even noxious weeds.
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