GHILLIE WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT
Crows Identification:
The American crow is a common glossy black bird found throughout Alberta. Feathers of crows are shiny and varicolored while their bills are black, solid, and strongly bent backward in the end. Young and adult crows are the same size, though the eyes of young are blue and their mouths are pink inside. With growing up their eyes and mouths become darker. Young are also identified by the sharpened, symmetric end of tails while adults’ feathers on the end of tails are wide open and rounded. In addition, during the first winter and spring of their lives, the wings and tails of youngsters are irregularly covered with brown-colored feathers. And then, when the first molt happens, new growing feathers are darker and shiny, thus giving the young appearance of adults.
Problems Crows may cause:
Large fall and winter crow roosts may cause problems in some areas, particularly when located in farm buildings or other sites near people and livestock. Such roosts are objectionable because of the odor of the bird droppings, the spread of disease, noise, and contamination of bails and other food stores in the roost. In addition, numbers of crows flying out from roosts each day to feed may cause damage to crops. At times, they feed in and around farm buildings, where they have been implicated in the spread of transmissible gastroenteritis (TGE) among swine facilities. At other times, large crow flocks near poultry facilities may increase the potential for spread of diseases such as avian cholera. The scavenging habits of crows and the apparent longer incubation time of the disease in crows are factors that increase the potential for crows to spread this devastating disease. Also, crows and other birds (blackbird, starling) roosts that have been in place for several years may harbor the fungus (Histoplasma capsulatum) that causes histoplasmosis, a disease that can infect people who breathe in spores when a roost is disturbed.
Crows nesting near humans, pets and livestock may mob and dive at passers by believing they are a threat to the nest. On occasion crows have been known to injure and harass newly born or sick livestock.
Crows have also been associated with crop damage at various stages of growth and decreased yield.