#THE WITNESS BIRD CALLS HOW TO#

What you’ll hear is the crow will usually be up in a tree looking into the distance and it’ll give off a short burst of 1-9 or so “caws”. Companion Calls (Non-Contextual Vocalizations)Ĭompanion calls are extremely common in crows but they work very differently than other passerines like juncos, sparrows or chickadees. Usually once you identify that you are indeed hearing some sort of bird language event in the crow vocalizations it’s only a matter of looking closer to figure out the source. The other basic type of call is noticeably different and is always linked to a specific event such as a predator. This is because a huge number of the crow calls that you’ll hear outside are non-contextual… meaning that they really can’t practically be linked to anything specific like a predator because their primary function is simply to communicate with other members of their flock at a distance like a companion call.Ī lot of people when they hear these calls will try to figure out if it means something specific when what it really tells us is that there’s nothing specific happening in the landscape at the moment.

#THE WITNESS BIRD CALLS HOW TO#

I would hazard a guess that not knowing how to listen for these two categories accounts for most of the confusion that beginning bird language people have around understanding crows. Two Basic Types Of CawsĬrow language can at the most simple level be broken down into two major categories that you’ll hear when you’re out in the field. The best thing if you want to understand crow language is not to try and understand every complex nuance, but to instead look for the largest level distinctions that can help us sort all the various calls into simple categories.

They’re almost always around anywhere there are people and their voices travel so far that if you learn to recognize the alarm behavior of a crow then you’ll be able to greatly extend the distance at which you can detect things like hawks, eagles, and other aerial predators. Yet as complex and varied as it may be, crows have the potential to bring some of the most important information that you could glean from listening to bird language.

Their vocal repertoire is so complex that it can be challenging to make sense of the sometimes confusing behavior of crows. The American Crow and similar species are one of the never-ending mysteries for people who study bird language ( what is bird language?)

The witness bird calls