Sounds like your book will be a good read: by now I bet you saw that video clip that just went around of a crow (not sure which species) “sledding” down an icy/snowy roof in winter. It used a puck of some sort as a sled, brilliant!

I understand that Rochester has hired people to remove the crows, but my birding friends tell me that the crows are always gone by January anyway (some speculate that New Year’s Eve fireworks drive them away).

It’s unclear if the city consulted leaders in the birding/ornithology community about the roost…to get a second opinion or to even see if their contract dollars would be well spent on the control methods.

Good luck on your book!

BTW: I’m researching digital publishing methods now, have you selected a digital publishing platform? Just wondering.

Currently I am writing and illustrating a book on the natural history of the American Crow, which I hope to publish online as pdfs in late 2012. Crows can be a nuisance, but at the same time fascinating. The provide a free, well choreographed show twice a day. They probably roost in our cities to avoid our guns and enjoy the artificial lighting. I grew up near Windsor, Ontario where the largest roost in Canada (100,000 crows) lasted for decades. Now, after some scare tactics, the birds have moved to another city. If the hired guns of Rochester manage to force them to roost outside of the city, that will be fine. They have been roosting in the country forever, prior to our conquering the earth and erecting cities to separate us from wildlife –- all wildlife except for a courage of crows. A congress of crows is also a super phrase. Without crows, the city will seem almost dead over the winter. I was in Rochester 15 years ago to visit the George Eastman House, and as I walked back to my hotel on a clear wintery evening, a flyway of crows overhead warmed my heart. I knew the roost was near.
During the day, crows feed on waste grain in the fields, some overwintering insects, as well as mice, which they dearly love. Generally they are a benefit to humans, farmers in particular, in spite of persecution by us for over a century.

Tom Reaume
Winnipeg, MB

Casey – I appreciate how this crow roost and associated activity adds to my experience of the City of Rochester. I hate to see it go away. Despite the crows’ intelligence, I hear there’s been success in dispersing large crow roots before – such as the one in Auburn, but I don’t have details on what worked. We’ll see how this story pans out.

Thanks for writing.

I like the categories you have set up. I think that will work well for you and the type of blog that you have.
I am a fan of your animated shorts and like seeing them featured under humor.
The only thing I would like to see is an archives..and maybe you have that..i just haven’t searched enough.
I sometimes go back and search a blog for content I remember seeing a month or two past. I suppose I could also search it another way as well..its just what I am used to.
Glad you are up and running again..

Dawn, I esp. appreciate your feedback because I realize the layout of the BLOG HOME PAGE is a bit different than most blogs and I’m going to take a deep look at whether it will work for the “audience” of readers who come here.

I realize the Recent Posts sidebar is pretty small, and that some people are used to that scrolling up and down to see the latest…

But because of RSS and search engines, most of my traffic is to a single blog post page, so this “featured slider” at the top is not ever seen, unless they click over to the blog home page.

But the featured slider is there esp. to appeal to new visitors to the blog home page to whom I want to deliver specific content and older posts sorted by categories. This is a direction magazines have gone – and over time will start to work better as I develop more targeted content.

So that’s where my mind was in choosing the theme, and time will tell if this works or not. Thanks again for giving me something to think about.

All feedback is welcome!

Have a great day.