Who left their tracks in the snow?
A raven! Ravens are perching birds, passerines, and have feet quite well designed to hold on to branches. In this toe arrangement (anisodactyl), three toes face forward and one faces backward. Ravens and crows have middle toes closer to their inner toe than their outer toe, which allows us to tell just looking at their track which foot is which. Ravens generally have tracks over 3.5 inches long, while crows’ tracks are under 3.5 inches long. These tracks were about 4 inches long, helping identify raven as the track-maker.
Ravens are active all winter. Given their large size, they have a slower rate of heat loss than other passerines. Still, they need lots of food to keep themselves warm on cold days. Due to their high energy needs, they often need to feed on large carcasses. They also enjoy rolling in fresh snow and even sledding!
Over the last year, we’ve noticed that crows are travelling across the landscape behind our place at about 4 or 4:30 pm every day. There are hundreds of them moving silently (unlike geese) from east to west.
On two occasions they landed near by on rooftops and trees and then took off again.
It seems to happen just about an hour before dark. We wondered at the cooperative effort made by so many – and we observe this year round. Like a herd of caribou or something…
We did meet up with “the hundreds” one day in Red Rocks park in Burlington. They were chattering altogether loudly as others landed and joined in.
Thanks for sharing, Annette! Stuck in Vermont did a great piece on a crow safari in Burlington, where thousands of crows gather to roost at night!