The American Crow is a widespread and familiar bird across North America, but few people know much about its complicated and fascinating life. The crow displays more human-like traits than perhaps any other animal: intelligence, adaptability, sociability, and caring, with strong family values and lifelong bonds. Kevin McGowan will discuss the results of his 26-year study of crows, starting with their home and family life. From there he will let the audience decide what comes next, letting them choose from stories about flock life, winter roosts, crow creativity, urban life, crow-human interactions, life history strategies, secret sex lives, or murder and treachery.
Kevin McGowan is the project manager for Distance Learning in Bird Biology in the Education program at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. He is the instructor for the long-running Home Study Course in Bird Biology, the online course Investigating Behavior: Courtship and Rivalry in Birds, and the Be a Better Birder online tutorials and identification webinars. Kevin McGowan was one of the creators of the Lab’s All About Birds website, one of the most popular bird sites on the internet. He was the co-editor and primary author for the book, The Second Atlas of Breeding Birds in New York State, and is the former curator of the bird and mammal collections at Cornell.
Kevin McGowan received a Ph.D. in Biology from the University of South Florida for work on the behavior of Florida Scrub-Jays. He has been studying the biology of a population of crows in central New York since 1988, and has followed the life stories of over 2,000 banded individuals. An avid birder as well as a professional ornithologist, Kevin McGowan enjoys all aspects of birds (especially crows), from behavior to physiology, from ecology to evolution, and from zooarchaeology to species identification. He is interested in spreading the appreciation of birds to all possible audiences, through all possible avenues.
In addition, Kevin McGowan is the co-editor of The Second Atlas of Breeding Birds in New York State, edited by Kevin J. McGowan and Kimberley Corwin https://www.dec.ny.gov/animals/7312.html