Local birds driven away by Crows? (1 Viewer)

We live in south central London.

Over the past few years we have been aware of very noticable dawn chorus from the local park.

This year, however, the chorus is much less obvious and there seem to be generally fewer small birds around. At the same time we have noticed many more crows in the communal garden and local environment.

Could the smaller birds be being driven away by an increase in the number of urban crows in London?

se1blackbird said:

We live in south central London.

Over the past few years we have been aware of very noticable dawn chorus from the local park.

This year, however, the chorus is much less obvious and there seem to be generally fewer small birds around. At the same time we have noticed many more crows in the communal garden and local environment.

Could the smaller birds be being driven away by an increase in the number of urban crows in London?

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I believe that is probably true. Here in the Pocono Mts. area of Pennsylvania I have noticed that as increased human development takes place (housing developments, shopping strips, etc.) the crow population has increased dramatically over the past 22 years. and there appear to be fewer of the other more wild species. In contrast, in a much more "wild" area in New York State where I own 103 acres of land and little development has taken place, crows are quite rare and ravens and other "wild" species much more prevalent.

se1blackbird said:

...Could the smaller birds be being driven away by an increase in the number of urban crows in London?

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I think you're partly right. In my area where there is a prevalence of crows the same thing has happened to the songbirds. Crows, because of their nest robbing behaviour, have decimated the songbirds.

I (in common with everyone else) have heard this argument put forward many times before - usually in connection with Magpies. There are indeed, entire websites devoted to it, which I will not dignify by naming.

Yet another part of the campaign to demonize Corvids.