FOR THE BIRDS

December 1989

By

Helen O'Shea

Crows, Ravens & Fox Sparrows

Crows are easy to recognize. They're the big black birds pulling apart bags of garbage or hopping along the edge of the highway picking at the remains of Kentucky Fried Chicken boxes. They also eat meadow voles, grasshoppers and other insect pests and raid gardens the odd time for freshly planted corn or ripened fruit. Some crows migrate but others stay in one locality year round. The severity of the winter seems to be a determining factor. Crows are common to most of North America.

The big cousin of the crow is the raven. It ranges from 53 to 67 cm in length. In the adult the entire plumage is black with a bluish iridescence, the throat feathers tend to stick out like a ragged beard and the tail is long and wedge shaped. While crows hang out together; ravens tend to be loners.

A NOVELTY for this time of year are 2 Fox Sparrows at my feeder. It is big sparrow with an overall rusty red colouring, bright reddish brown tail and a heavily streaked

chest. Fox Sparrows normally arrive in large numbers in the spring. When searching for food they scratch with both feet. Our fellows should be on their way south to the sun. Provincial wildlife people guess they caught the last flight from Newfoundland and discovered that they liked this neck of the woods. Melvin Huntington, writing in May 1947, notes that the Fox sparrow has been a spring visitor to Louisbourg for about 25 years.

Helen O’Shea

Extracted from © The Seagull, Helen O'Shea, For the Birds

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