Yesterday I saw a video of a mall parking lot in Augusta Maine taken after dark on March 5th and there were 100's and 100's of crows on the ground, in the trees and sitting on the large snow banks. It was a news item for WMTW Channel 8 in Maine. Now I found this video posted yesterday by Maine Public Television of crows in Lewiston Maine about 30 miles away from Augusta. Mainehunt where are you?
I was shooting crows just like that 3 months ago. It’s impossible to kill more then a few. I believe I got 12 that day. When you see them from a mile away comming blows your mind. Each hunt was very similar. But they changed their tactics. After a month only a 100 would come, then 50, then 20, then 10, then 3. They became educated. So now none. So I moved and continue to drop them.
Ok, so what your saying is that i need to take a really long road trip. Thanks for posting this, i was forgetting what a bunch of crows looked like. Now i'm really depressed.
We have gotten a over a foot of snow in the past week. The temperature has been below normal. 8-15 degrees, I went scouting this morning instead of hunting. I seen maybe 5 crows on a 40 mile loop. All looked sickly, puffed up just sitting in the snow alone. That’s not normal. I went to the food source and only a hand full pecking around, that’s not normal. They have moved on to a warmer area.
This is absolutely incredible period!! I mean MAINE?!? Who would have thought?
Believe this at the right time in late fall a very similair sight can be seen in northern NH....I know what you are thinking but the whole area either has houses or posted properties like no ones' business! Many areas are posted where it would be illegal to shoot anyways but it's all about anti-hunting anyways...some people would rather be buried in tons of black and white rain as opposed to reducing their numbers!
On a similiar note; one fall a huge flight of crows came out of the north stretching from horizon to horizon. I had never seen a sight like that before or since. Totally amazing. My partner and I got 5 crows out of this unusually gigantic flight that day. It was the only one but much smaller groups came through but it other wise was nothing like the videos on you tube...300 here ..a hundred there..total that day was no more than possibly 25 altogether.
The year this took place gave us a rather brutal winter I add....so think sometime in the mid 90s...
I stand corrected; in the mid to late 70s in the connecticutt river region deep southwestern NH this was almost the norm...but as it is those days are long gone. You might see a total of 5 crows in that area in fall.....I think due to new farming techniques where there is no food around enough to support such numbers. I used to think the closing of the old dumps figured in this but maybe but there were so many crows I don't think that contributed as much...but goose and pheasant hunting certainly did.
Basically the local flock was pretty big until the migration when groups of twenty or less was quite common until deer season when the flights of up to a hundred were common sailing down rte.12 over looking the Connecticutt river....I miss the good old days! At least I was there to see it.
Researchers for the Maine Turnpike Authority found over 200 dead crows near Bangor, Maine recently, and there was concern that they may have died from Avian Flu. They had a Bird Pathologist examine the remains of all the crows, and to everyone's relief, he confirmed the problem was definitely NOT Avian Flu.
However, he determined that 98% of the crows had been killed by impact with trucks, and only 2% were killed by an impact with a car. Maine then hired an Ornithological Behaviorist to determine the cause of the disproportionate percentages for truck kills versus car kills.
The Ornithological Behaviorist determined the cause in short order:
When crows eat road kill, they always have a look-out crow in a nearby tree, to warn of impending danger.
His conclusion was that, while all the lookout crows could say “Cah”, none could say “Truck”.
