Where are the crows?

[trapper9260]

The Redwings Black birds show up here for the start of spring . We do not have alot od crows around here. I thinking it has to do with what has been said on sprays and the virus . When I was small we had ducks for eggs and the crows would go after the eggs and the ducks try to fight them off . Until my Dad started to shot them and they left the eggs alone. I know of one farm have crows show up at a friends place. But they not around all the time.

[Rapier]

We have quite a few here. They keep the red hawks tuned up. Got a red hawk family on the SW corner of the place. As long as everyone does ok with the live together business I leave them all alone. But every couple years the crows get out of hand and start raiding the bird and duck nests, pulling up planted corn, etc. Then I will bust a dozen or so and they leave for about 3 months. Things calm down after that, but they just can not help themselves, they are destructive and they go back to old habits. Similar to snapping turtles in my two ponds, they get a headache. Hawks and owls are just what they are.

[TheGrimReaper]

I used to love crow hunting with my grandfather

[rockrat]

Also used to crow hunt in the 70's over at Ft Cobb, OK. We had a blast. My shoulder would be black and blue for days afterwards. Used duck loads #2 shot. Could get them up to about 70 yards high. Used a single shot "long Tom" H&R.
Heard OKDOW set dynamite covered with gravel in the roosts to kill them by the thousands, plus I don't think the farmers raised peanuts there anymore.
Remember crows by the thousands flying into the roost. You could look to the West and not see the end of the flights coming in.
Where I live now, no crows, but ravens. Tried my crow call on them when I moved here and they took off. The ravens are smart, I got a couple flying over my house one day. They quit flying over my place for about 3 years afterwards. A pair had the nerve to nest in one of my trees a few years ago, but for some reason, they left after the eggs hatched. Guess they didn't like me mowing the pasture or working in the garden so close to the nest.

[atfsux]

I don't pretend to know the answers to these questions. But I can tell you it isn't all doom and gloom with crows. They are even expanding into new territory where they have not previously been.

Here in the rural outskirts of the Phoenix metro area, we have in the last few years begun to see crows during the cooler winter season. I am a native 3rd generation Arizonan, who's family was established here over 100 years ago back before statehood. So I can say with some authority that crows have NEVER been a resident bird in this area. Its just too hot here, and crows don't handle it. They are plentiful elsewhere in the state, at higher/cooler elevations. But Phoenix? Hell naw!

That is until about 5 years ago, when I first started hearing their unmistakable caw overhead here on the ranch. But only during the months when high temps drop below 90F, which is basically from November to March. And then they decide to go elsewhere.

[35 Rem]

I already responded to this discussion but to better quantify the crows I see here in North Alabama and middle Tennessee I'll add this. There are some days that crows just don't make their presence known for reasons only known to them. But there are days every week when you can go out and call crows year round and typically get responses. Sometimes it may only be 5 or 6 that come to the call. Other times, typically Fall or Winter you may get a couple dozen. If you shoot one and then start playing the "Wounded crow" sound, look out because that usually brings in the stragglers that were holding back and you may easily have a couple dozen or more. It's a very rare day when I deer hunt and don't hear them off and on all day long. As far as roosts I don't recall ever finding one myself.

[elmacgyver0]

I have never shot a crow, but I have had to eat it on occasion.

[John in WYO]

I didn’t read all the responses but Fort Cobb, OK was known as a roost with millions of crows in the 1980 time frame.
Lots of peanut farmers there.
I’ve shot there a few times.

[lightload]

They moved to the city and walk around my yard like they own it. I remember when I could not get near a crow. The ones in my yard ignore me. We leave each other alone. Same with most snakes.

[rockrat]

IIRC, there was supposed to be around 3 million crows roosting around Ft. Cobb, OK. When they came into the roost in the evening, you could believe it.

[rmark]

'Also used to crow hunt in the 70's over at Ft Cobb, OK.'

Migration pattern shifted west, plus less money in peanuts meant less peanuts being grown which means less crow feed.

My wife's family is from the Ft. Cobb/Carnegie/Mountain View area.

[murf205]

I was on a crow hunt a few yrs back and they were skitish flying pretty high but coming to the Fox Pro any way. My hunting a partner had a pocket full of old Remington Express #2 lead shells that someone had gifted him a whole case of and he told me to take a hand full. Problem solved, they hit the ground DRT. Since then, I have started using #4's since #2 lead is almost impossible to find. I leave the dove and promotional ammo for grand kids to shoot clays with.

[gwpercle]

Used to see more of them years ago ... but lately haven't seen many crows in South Louisiana .

I think crows are smarter than your average bird and they figured out that them crazy Cajuns do indeed eat anything ... including Crows .

My first "game bird" was a huge black crow I took on the wing with my brand new .410 ga. shotgun ... it was a long shot even for a 12 ga. ... but one #6 pellet hit him in the head & killed him stone cold dead ... at the shot he folded his wings and dropped like a rock ! Talk about a lucky shot !
I brought him home and momma cooked him for me ... Mom must have been a good cook ... it tasted wonderful to a proud eleven year old now a ...
" Certified Bird Hunter " !
Gary

[BobT]

Still have plenty of them around here!

[Jedman]

I see a few now and then around this area the SW end of Lake Erie. The last time I remember seeing them in large flocks was in the early 1990’s. There was a late hard freeze in the spring and they must have been spawning and it killed off thousands of gizzard shad along the Maumee river and the crows were eating them like candy.
That was the last time I got in any good shooting on them.
Jedman

[T-Bird]

HaHa! GW, can't seem to get them to eat nutria tho!

[Wayne Smith]

Here in Virginia Beach we have about a dozen resident crows. They are smart - I protect my blueberries with my slingshot and if they see me with the slingshot they literally turn and fly away. I have never had a chance to hit one.

[rockrat]

I have read that they can tell if someone has a shotgun in their hand or not (and if its loaded!!!)

[35 Rem]

I sometimes think they can tell the choke of your barrel. Sneaky son-of-a-guns are a challenge if you start trying to kill them on a regular basis

[smkummer]

It’s probably been 15 or more years when crows used to love my trash. Hard to believe they could knock over a plastic trash can but most trash days I had to go out and pick up trash in my yard before the trash service came. Maybe they work with some other critter to do that. Anyway my best memory of “curing” that situation was aiming the old sights of my colt lightning 22 rifle dead on a “cocky” crow thinking my rural subdivion property was all his. A CCI CB long was just the medicine ( now CCI makes 22 LR quiet). A quiet bang and that crow helicoptered on down dead. His buddy crow made all kinds of loud ruckus over it and was mad! But probably realized he was next. I left the carcass for all his kind to observe. Which around here the next morning something drags it off as a prize. Only had to shoot 2 or 3 over a few months and the word got out umongbthe crows. I occasionally see crows now but have more secure trash cans now. I believe they are very intelligent and just move to their next opportunity. If the pickins’ are good, they think they own it.