Yet another Raven report in DC

Paul Pisano

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Feb 27, 2015, 8:24:15 AM2/27/15

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I know this is becoming old news to some, but still exciting to me. Late yesterday morning (at 11:15am to be exact), I was on a conference call and staring out the window of my office (the story of my work life), which is by the Navy Yard in SE DC. My office looks north, over Capitol Hill, and I saw 3 crows chasing a larger, all black bird. I just so happened to have a pair of bins by my phone, so I got on the birds and confirmed my suspicion - the crows were chasing a COMMON RAVEN. The birds were flying really low, and the raven evaded the crows by dropping down to street level (ie, it went below the skyline, which consists mostly of 3 story houses). The crows turned off and the raven came back up and immediately joined another raven. They then flew east at a quick clip.

I wonder if these are the same 2 birds that Dan Rauch recently reported from the Chain Bridge area or if it's a different pair. If the latter, how many ravens are now calling DC home?

Good birding,

Paul Pisano

Arlington, VA

Jim Nelson

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Feb 27, 2015, 9:39:20 AM2/27/15

to MDbirding

I just looked at my daily eBird rare bird alert for DC and see that Dan Rauch reported a Common Raven at noon yesterday at the National Arboretum – good chance it is one of the birds Paul saw a bit earlier. This the nice synergy of MDBirding and eBird for identifying and locating interesting birds.

Jim Nelson

Bethesda, MD

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Daniel Rauch

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Feb 27, 2015, 9:58:48 AM2/27/15

to Jim Nelson, MDbirding

The raven fly over north to south east at 1pm over the arboretum. I had a great view of the skyline at the time and did not see another.

According to the 2nd md/DC breeding bird atlas, there weren't any nests in Montgomery County. The closest to dc is Frederick on the Maryland side. Are they working their way down the Potomac Gorge on the Virginia side?

Dan Rauch

Washington DC

James Tyler Bell

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Feb 27, 2015, 10:13:25 AM2/27/15

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If you look at eBird, you'll see that Common Ravens have greatly expanded their range from basically Sideling Hill, historicall, to where they are now on the western shore of the Chesapeake in northern/central Anne Arundel, in Maryland, and to the western shore of the Potomac in Virginia. Not sure why they haven't pushed into Calvert, Charles or St. Mary's yet but that range seems to have stayed fixed for the last several years.

Tyler Bell
jtyle...@yahoo.com
California, Maryland

    From: Daniel Rauch <danra...@gmail.com>
 To: Jim Nelson <kingfi...@verizon.net> 
Cc: MDbirding <mdbi...@googlegroups.com> 
 Sent: Friday, February 27, 2015 9:58 AM
 Subject: Re: [MDBirding] Yet another Raven report in DC

David Mozurkewich

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Feb 27, 2015, 10:48:20 AM2/27/15

to MDBirds

On Fri, 27 Feb 2015 15:13:22 +0000 (UTC)
"'James Tyler Bell' via Maryland & DC Birding"

<mdbi...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

> If you look at eBird, you'll see that Common Ravens have greatly
> expanded their range from basically Sideling Hill, historicall, to
> where they are now on the western shore of the Chesapeake in
> northern/central Anne Arundel, in Maryland, and to the western shore
> of the Potomac in Virginia. Not sure why they haven't pushed into
> Calvert, Charles or St. Mary's yet but that range seems to have
> stayed fixed for the last several years.

Tyler,

Ravens have not yet pushed into Calvert, Charles and St Mary's counties
because in both MD and VA they are still confined to the piedmont. The
fall line runs through northern DC then south just west of the Potomac
River. SE DC and northern Anne Arundel counties are in the coastal
plane, but not by much and I don't think they're nesting there. The
nesting birds on the Howard-PG county line are also piedmont.

Dave Mozurkewich

George Jett

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Feb 27, 2015, 10:57:11 AM2/27/15

to James Tyler Bell, MDbirding

Tyler, et al.

I have two raven records for Charles Co. One from the old house on Waldorf. Maybe I should put those in eBird.

The first record was in Nanjemoy. Jim Stasz & I had it in March a long time ago. Jim May have put that in eBirds. I will add both records this weekend.