365 Urban Species. #219: Northwestern Crow

Photos by urbpan. Location: Douglas street, Vancouver.

For the entry on the American crow (including another picture of a northwestern crow), click the link in this sentence.

While the American crow (C. brachyrhyncos) ranges across almost the entire United States, the northwestern crow occupies only that strip of coast from very northern Washington up to Alaska. Like the fish crow (C. ossifragus) of the east coast, the northwestern crow feeds along the shoreline. Before the coast was urbanized, these birds fed mainly on beach carrion and marine mollusks. Today northwestern crows are found in the streets of cities from Seattle to Anchorage, patrolling city parks and back alleys. Coastal crows and gulls seem destined to compete for food resources.

In Seattle the northwestern crows and American crows appear to coexist in mixed flocks, and may interbreed. The population of crows in Seattle has been increasing, perhaps exponentially, for the past 30 years. Even the Seattle Audubon Society's bird counters, for simplicity's sake, don't distinguish between the two intermingling urban species.


Location: downtown Victoria.

Another relevant photo can be found here.