Cisco Sonar

Black Invaders

By Bryce Nielson, The Cisco Kid

I have lived in the Bear Lake Valley for 43 years.  It amazes me how much bird populations have changed during that period.  I spend a lot of time casually watching birds at my feeders and on and around Bear Lake.  I have observed a number of significant changes this year.

The first, this spring was the lack of gulls around the lake.  The herring gull usually shows up when the first fish truck arrives.  One squawk and the word is out and gulls arrive for everywhere.  The pavement would be white on the outside edge of the marina. When you are out on the lake, you could throw one potato chip overboard and in less than five minutes you had a flock begging for more.  You would see them and franklin gulls (black head) feeding in the fields by Woodruff.  This year I have seen very few gulls, hardly any while DWR was stocking fish.  I have heard of this phenomena in other inland western areas.  Maybe climate change, which is now the standard answer when something weird happens.

The other bird is the American crow.  They were extremely rare here 40 years ago.  I don’t know about you, but it seems they are everywhere now.  They are usually disliked, a relative of a magpie, but an interesting bird.  They range throughout the U.S. and Canada.  They are similar to ravens but smaller with a blunt tail.  Their flight pattern is unique with patient, methodical flapping broken up with few glides.  Crows don’t breed until they are at least four years old.  They nest in mature evergreens, which are common now in urban areas and residents/cabins where humans leave a lot of food.  What I found interesting is that they form family groups up to 15 birds.  The young from previous years stay with the parents and help raise the new chicks.  The only leave when they are old enough to breed.  In the winter they accumulate in roosting areas, sometimes up to 2,000,000 birds, which cause obvious problems.

They are extremely smart, mischievous, thieves, can use tools and generally a pain in the butt.  They eat anything from night crawlers to your dog’s food.  You will see them by roadkill, but they can’t tear anything apart with their blunt, bills so they have to wait until something else rips it open or it rots.  They follow other birds to their nest where they can eat the chicks.  They wait for migrating, exhausted, songbirds and then eat them.  They will gang up on hawks flying with food and make them drop it.  They are also the most susceptible bird to west Nile virus.

Love them, hate them, ignore them, they are here to stay.  At least as long as the seagull did.