Ravens are adapting to change

RAVENS, according to a study in the US state of Idaho, are changing their behaviour. These huge crows used to live only around mountains, desert anyons and sea cliffs. Now they are nesting on phone masts, buildings and steel towers.

Over 73% of the nests found by Peter Coates, and colleagues of the US Geological Survey, were on man-made structures, 53% of them electricity pylons.

The team also studied the nesting choices of three species of buzzard. These, they found, were much less likely to change their ways. The red-tailed hawk is a bird you will see throughout the United States. Seventy per cent of the Idaho pairs nested in trees. Swainson’s hawks used traditional sites almost exclusively while over 74% of ferruginous hawks chose natural ones.