lmnmeringue

I like string cheese and I've never fed string cheese to a crow, but I'd bet they'd love it. As for their favorite food, peanuts are at the top of the list!

In short, they aren't! See Jenn's blog post on the subject: http://coyot.es/thecorvidblog/2013/10/29/crows-and-shiny-objects/

Birds can fly in to windows for a couple of reasons. First of all, birds might fly in to a window because it cannot see the window and does not realize that the window is in flight path. The bird may fly in to a window multiple times in a row, particularly if it thinks another bird is on its territory. The bird attacks the "intruder" and the "intruder" puts up a pretty good fight!

Discussing language in animals is a somewhat controversial and very complex topic! There isn't a firm understanding on what the definition and requirements of animal language are (does language require sentence structure or can language just include calls that indicate a certain food, action or individual?). Additionally, to complicate things, some animals have learned to communicate with humans using human (not animal) language. Koko the gorilla and Alex the parrot come to mind, as examples.

As for crows, a lot is still unknown about their vocalizations. Very few people have studied them. Crows do have a large repertoire of complex calls. We already know that crows give calls associated with certain contexts; they have alarm calls, calls associated with breeding, and possibly food calls. I'm currently working on calls associated with food and breeding and finding out that their calls are sometimes too complex for me to figure out!

They give calls, as opposed to songs. Calls are relatively short vocalizations (caws, squawks, chatters, etc), whereas songs are longer melodious vocalizations that are usually associated with courtship. Calls probably have the most potential to form a language (rather than songs). For an amazing example of call use in animals- see prairie dogs! http://www.animalplanet.com/tv-shows/wild-kingdom/videos/prairie-dog-language.htm

Hi! There actually aren't an extraordinary amount of crows in Ithaca. The Ithaca crow population has actually recently experienced two fairly significant West Nile Virus episodes over the past two summers, so the crow population has actually decreased recently. However, in the winter, you may see large flocks of crows that come in to town to roost. Crows are partially migratory and get together to feed during the day and roost at night.