Re: bird watching

**"* O* <t*@earthlink.net>**

R.e. West Nile virus and the birds....I was giving some talks in St Louis,
MO about five years ago, and my host, the head botanist at the Missouri
Botanic Gardens, Dr Walter H Lewis, told me that their most common city
birds used to be crows and pigeons, but the WNV had killed off almost all of
them.
  I'm now told these birds are making a comeback there, good to hear.
  Here in my own town, San Luis Obispo, Ca... the crows have always been
fairly common and if West Nile did a number on them, I never noticed.

----- Original Message -----
From: <GeraldB571@aol.com>
To: <gardenwriters@lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Friday, January 04, 2008 10:19 AM
Subject: [GWL] bird watching

> We've always been bird watchers, and since we traveled a lot in our RV we
> saw many western birds. here in Riverside CA we see a good mixture, but as
the
> city had brown and expanded we find some are missing. We used to see lots
of
> California jays, but don't now. But we do see sparrows, juncos, thrashers,
red
>  tailed hawks, house finches, goldfinches, doves, and pigeons, a few
Western
> Bluebirds in the winter.
>
> But an interesting sight now is the crow. Yes, the common crow. We used to
> have many of them, but then West Nile Virus depleted their numbers
> drastically.  Before West Nile, we would see them in the morning and the
evening, flying
> to and from in their search for food. They roosted in the tall  trees
along
> the Santa Ana River (a typical desert river here, half a mile wide,
sometimes
> a trickle of water, most of it running under ground) and they'd leave
there
> in the morning in huge flights, sometimes more than a hundred, often many
> groups of 25 and more. Then they disappeared. We saw none for a couple of
years.
> Many homeowners found dead birds in their gardens, they scooped up
hundreds
> out  in the roosting area near the river, I found a couple in my garden,
and
> they  were no more, and we missed them.
>
> Today their numbers are increasing again, and today, when we see a flock
of
> them heading out in the morning or coming back in the evening, we remark
on
> it.  We're glad to see the common crow return.
>
> Jerry
>
>
> Gerald Burke
> Garden Writer
>
>
>
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