Crows on vacation

The crows have long since dispersed to their nesting areas and although I still regularly see a handful of them most I have lost track of. I havent seen the crows banded RedWhite/WS, YB/s , any of the Green bands, Orange/silver, and surprisingly i have not seen DomMax! There is another crow with gap between madalla and mandible but not the one who is so easily mistaken for Dom Max . weeks ago I several times saw the one with a slightly maimed foot, but not since then. Seems like over a month ago I saw white/white/silver , but not recently.

I saw RedWhite/WS when the crows first began splitting up into territories. Sadly, no matter whether he was at Tsunami Row, Wooded Campground, or My Backyard, there was always at least one crow who would chase it away and it didnt get much, if any, of my food offerings. Sometimes it was able to catch the food i tossed to it and fly away before another stole it, but not often enough. He/she was the first of the regulars to disappear. I hope he found easier feeding grounds and is learning to adapt to life with the use of only one foot.

During the past two weeks I have been lazy about taking the camera but I do have some photos. And as usual none ready to post. Will probably break down and burn a case of CDs and mail them. In the unlikely event that anyone should read this I am referring to the suggestion by the researcher at USGS that I put the crow picks on CD and mail to her since the files are too large to send by email. I have 2 GB already of bird picks just since February 2008, but only a minority of the photos are well focused enough to be worthy of her time viewing . On the other hand it is taking me forEver to sort through label and ready to upload the photos to this blog where she can view them without having to save them to her hard drive. My goal is to not go broke buying CDs and to spare her having to view a thousand photos unworthy of her time.

I have seen MangledFoot most days, although she did disappear for nearly a week which gave me a scare. I am attached to her. I thought maybe she had a nest near camp site 21 or 23 because she was always in one of those trees for a couple of weeks. Now I dont think so. Some crows still pull bits off of branches and gather twigs and such. She still hangs out in the trees above me canoodling with her partner. They are newly weds. They're entitled.

Seen this past week-

• yellow/ws - repeatedly is chased off by Bully Boy (looks like Silver but has no band and a bit more aggressive temperament), now I understand why yellow and a few unbandeds were hanging out on Tsunami Row - the crows have dispersed into territories and Y/WS I am guessing is one of the unattached juveniles.
• white red/ws was gone for awhile then reappeared one day. Also gets chased but not as persistently as Yellow/ws
• BlueWhite/ws and WhiteBlue/ws - they both had shown up on Tsunami Row back when Yellow/ws and crew were there. They also both would show up at the wooded camp ground. I did not see them for a week or so and now have been seeing one or the other at the wooded campground.
  
• Silver - has remained a constant. A few days I either did not see him or did not recognize him (or is he a her ...) but most days he is there. Still approaches me but often keeps a little more distance than in winter. Then again one day I was photographing Silver approach when i realized it was almost touching me. Probably curious about the camera

That reminds me, I had a clear cup of dog food sitting next to me while I was topssing other food and Yellow/WS came up and tried several times to tip it and when suceeded proceeded to take the nuggets from inside the cup but ignored the ones that he could have more easily reached that had spilled onto the ground at the edge of cup rim.