Nature Note #154: Shadow Flight (Part I)
As the countdown to the first snowfall begins in earnest, another flurry is happening in our skies every night. As the light leaves pastels of pink and purple along the horizon, American ( Corvus brachyrhynchos ) and Fish Crows ( C. ossifragus ) have started their nightly journeys across the sky. Here in Syracuse, you usually see them as you travel home from work while waiting for the lights to change. Huge crowds heading over route 690 to some place beyond where they spend the night in great roosts, clustered together amidst the encroaching city. Why they cluster together like this during the winter is a bit of a mystery. Some hypotheses suggest that it could be a means for crows to gather information about potential food sources in the surrounding areas, while others suspect it has something to do with safety in numbers. Either way, such a huge gathering of these black birds seems ominous and sinister. After all, throughout history, crows and their cousins, the ravens have always