Fish Crow Marauders
This is a marauding Fish Crow (Corvus ossifragus), as identified by voice, flying through a neighborhood and searching for nests to raid. If you have a lot of experience with them you can get used to picking out the slightly smaller Fish vs. American Crow as well. Whether it is tiny hatchlings or developing eggs the many nests that fill our lands, from forest to shore, are often extremely tempting targets for corvids at this point in the season. Both a male and female Baltimore Oriole were aggressively attacking this bird until it vacated the area. Groups of Fish Crow are an enormous threat...
Read MoreMonarch proposed to U.S. Endangered Species Act
Kudos to our friends at The Xerces Society for joining forces with other experts in filing a legal request with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to add the Monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus) to the Endangered Species Act. This process takes several years normally so prepare to wait! I was pleased to see they added a “request that the USFWS pass a special rule, called a 4(d) rule, that will allow scientific research, citizen tagging and monitoring, milkweed production, and non-commercial rearing in classrooms and households to continue and not to be considered as “take” or...
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