CORVIDAE AT HOME

     Corvidae is the family name of the related crows, ravens, jays and magpies.  And I have seen blue jays, American crows, fish crows and northern ravens from our back deck at home in southeastern Pennsylvania over the last few years. 

     All these Corvidae members are adaptable, intelligent and will consume practically anything, reasons for their great success.  Members of this family are present throughout the world, except on some ocean islands and Antarctica.    

     Beautiful, blue, black and white blue jays live permanently in our neighborhood, and raise young here.  One day in April, a few years ago, I saw a jay with something in its beak in a tree.  Then that jay fed the morsel to his mate, as part of their courtship.  A few weeks later, I found a blue jay on a nest on the top of a seven-foot red juniper tree on our lawn. 

     Late in summer, through autumn, we see a family of blue jays cavorting boisterously in a group of tall Norway spruce trees in our neighborhood.  And later, we see a few jays flying beautifully in and out of a couple of striking, red and brown-leafed pin oak trees in our neighborhood.  The jays harvest acorns from those oaks and put them into holes in trees, or poke them into the ground near the oaks, to be extracted during winter's hardships.

     Occasionally in red and gold October, we see groups of blue jays, that nested farther north, passing silently over our deck as they migrate south for the winter.  I know they are jays by the way they fly.   

     We see two populations of American crows from our deck; one that nests in southeastern Pennsylvania, including a pair in our neighborhood, and the other that raises young in New York, New England and Canadian forests, but winters here in the many thousands.  The crows that nest here drift south for the winter.  But wintering hordes here feed mostly on waste corn kernels and dead chickens in fields, and roost together in cities and groves of tall coniferous trees, where they can be a nuisance, but are exciting to see pouring into roost each late-afternoon in winter. 

     We also see a few fish crows at home, but sparingly and, mostly, just passing overhead.  We identify fish crows by their vocalizations, that are noticeably more nasal than those of American crows.  

     Fish crows are inclined to be along larger bodies of water where they scavenge fish and raise young.  I've known a good population of them in Northeast, Maryland, at the top of Chesapeake Bay.   

     Common ravens are wilderness birds across much of the northern hemisphere.  They were down in numbers, but are now increasing in population, and settling in habitats closer to human activities.  

     I've seen several ravens, over the years, in southeastern Pennsylvania, including an exciting pair one afternoon last September.  I was sitting on our deck and saw two large, black birds soaring toward me.  Thinking they were black vultures, I looked at those birds with 16 power binoculars and discovered they were common ravens!  What a thrill!  As I watched, both birds must have found a thermal of rising warmed air because they suddenly spiraled up and up, then peeled off to the southwest and were soon out of sight.  They might have been on migration.    

     Scavenging jays, crows and ravens will ingest most everything that is edible, including grain and carrion.  And some individuals of each kind are predators, killing small or weak creatures.  I've even seen blue jays killing house sparrows with blows of their heavy beaks.  

    This intelligent family of birds is quite successful in surviving.  I am always happy to see any species of this far-flung family of adaptable birds.