As the Crow Flies

BirdNote^®

As the Crow Flies?

Written by Ellen Blackstone

This is BirdNote!
[Cawing of American Crows]
Whoever said that the fastest way to get somewhere is “as the crow flies” must not have seen crows flying to their night roost on an autumn afternoon. These shiny black aerial acrobats free-fall, tumble and tangle, then swoop back up. Definitely not the fastest way from one place to the next, as that old saying surely meant.
 [Chatter of the Barn Swallow]
And “eating like a bird?” Well, in a single summer day, the Barn Swallow - like the ones we’re hearing - consumes about 850 insects. An American Robin chick gulps down up to 40 meals. And the Canada Goose consumes four pounds of grass. Do the math. Do you know anybody who eats like these birds?
[Robin’s chip-chip-chip distress call]
And, while being “free as a bird” sounds like fun, most birds have seasonal tasks that keep their…hmmm… beaks to the grindstone. Migration, courtship, nesting, feeding and protecting hungry chicks — and feeding them again — then back through the cycle. If you envy that bird’s “freedom,” consider the miles to fly and the mouths to feed – all in a year’s work, for a bird.
[Cheerily song of the American Robin]
For BirdNote.org, I’m Michael Stein. 
 
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Calls of the birds provided by The Macaulay Library of Natural Sounds at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, New York. Caw of American Crow recorded by G.A.Keller, chatter of Barn Swallows by G.A. Keller, distress call of American Robin by R.S.Little, song of American Robin by W.L. Hershberger.

Senior Producer: Mark Bramhill
Producer: Sam Johnson
Content Director: Jonese Franklin

© 2014 Tune In to Nature.org     November 2014/2019/2024     Narrator:  Michael Stein

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