Observations by nato

I was walking my dog down west on Birchcliff Parkway at 4:34pm EST when I came upon a large group of hundreds of crows streaming from north to south in a flight path roughly across the Champlain Chocolates parking lot. I had intentionally picked this time to go for the walk as I had seen another steam in the neighborhood a week before at roughly the same time (actually, more like 50 minutes earlier). Aside from recognizing their silhouettes in the sky (see pic), I also heard enough tell-tale cawing to make me believe these were indeed American Crows that we were seeing.

Follow-up: A few minutes later, we walked north on adjoining Cherry Street, and, as we rounded the corner (the street turns east), I saw another large group of crows --not as many as this group, I'd estimate closer to 50-100-- flying north from the south. It appeared as though they were flying into next-door Calahan Park, although they could have easily kept flying over the park for all I was able to discern due to the houses & trees blocking my view.

At any rate, I thought this an interesting observation, as it implied that the south-bound stream I'd seen at 4:34 wasn't going in a "canonical" direction, and either part of it or maybe a completely different group were going in roughly the opposite direction. Obviously, Calahan Park bears further investigation around dusk!

10:37am EST: Spotted three crows walking about the green by Lake Champlain Chocolates, south side of Birchcliff Parkway (Burlington, Vermont, USA). Two things to note:

• There were also a couple of squirrels around, and all the animals appeared to be doing the same thing, searching about for something edible. I was struck by the degree to which the animals were able to "work" in proximity to each other, though there was an incident in which one of the squirrels charged one of the crows, which flew off a short distance.
• The crow in this picture had something small and bread-like in its beak. It walked a couple of feet over from the lawn to a puddle, then (apparently purposefully) dropped the piece of food into the puddle, picked it up, then dropped it again. Might it have been using the puddle to soften the food to make it easier to swallow and digest?

If you look closely, you can see the piece of food in the puddle; it's more-or-less in a straight line from the tip of the crow's beak. (Picture taken through window of my car.)

This picture represents hundreds of crows flying from north/northeast to south/southwest, January 19, 2013, 4:10pm EST. I was walking my dog east on Cherry Lane.

I also posted a 2:30 video of this murder: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4ujlDwyyfY