SHORT COMMUNICATIONS 
187 
temperatures recorded were warmer than the air, 
potentially leading some individuals to roost on 
the ground in spite of potential increased preda¬ 
tion risk. The anecdotal nature of our report 
requires caution, but we suggest future studies 
examining urban roost selection by crows evalu¬ 
ate not only structural features but thermal 
features as well. A better understanding of roost 
selection criteria may better inform management 
directed at winter roosts in urban environments. 
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 
We thank M. C. Brittingham, W. P. Gorenzel, F. S. 
Guthrey, and J. M. Marzluff for providing valuable 
comments on the manuscript. We also acknowledge 
Wittenberg University for financial support through the 
Wittenberg Student Research Grant Program (SDB-2-09- 
10 ). 
LITERATURE CITED 
Avery, M. L., E. A. Tillman, and V. S. Humphrey. 2008. 
Effigies for dispersing urban crow roosts. Proceedings 
of the Vertebrate Pest Conference 23:84-87. 
Beauchamp, G. 1999. The evolution of communal roosting 
in birds: origin and secondary losses. Behavioral 
Ecology 10:675-687. 
Caccamise, D. F., L. M. Reed. J. Romanowski, and P. C. 
Stouffer. 1997. Roosting behavior and group territo¬ 
riality in American Crows. Auk 114:628-637. 
Edwards, C. L. 1888. Winter roosting colonies of crows. 
American Journal of Psychology 1:436-459. 
Emlen Jr, J. T. 1938. Midwinter distribution of the 
American Crow in New York State. Ecology 19: 
264-275. 
Everding, S. E. and D. N. Jones. 2006. Communal 
roosting in a suburban population of Torresian Crows 
(Corvus orru). Landscape and Urban Planning 76:21 — 
33. 
Fiedler, L. A. 1969. Winter roosting behavior of the 
Common Crow. Thesis. Bowling Green State Univer¬ 
sity, Bowling Green. Ohio, USA. 
Gorenzel, W. P. and T. P. Salmon. 1992. Urban crow 
roosts in California. Proceedings of the Vertebrate Pest 
Conference 15:97-102. 
Gorenzel, W. P. and T. P. Salmon. 1995. Characteristics 
of American Crow urban roosts in California. Journal 
of Wildlife Management 59:638-645. 
Gorenzel, W. P., T. P. Salmon, G. D. Simmons, B. 
Barkhouse, and M. P. Quisenberry. 2000. Urban 
crow roosts, a nationwide phenomena? Proceedings of 
the Wildlife Damage Management Conference 
25:158-170. 
Haase, B. L. 1963. The winter flocking behavior of the 
Common Crow ( Con>us brachyrhynchos brehm). Ohio 
Journal of Science 63:145-151. 
Kilpatrick, A. M. 2003. The impact of thermoregulatory 
costs on foraging behavior: a test with American 
Crows {Corvus brachyrhynchos ) and eastern grey 
squirrels {Sciurus carolinensis). Evolutionary Ecology 
Research 5:781-786. 
Marzluff, J. M., K. J. McGowan, R. Donnelly, and R. 
L. Knight. 2001. Causes and consequences of 
expanding American Crow populations. Pages 331 
363 in Avian ecology and conservation in an 
urbanizing world (J. M. Marzluff, R. Bowman, and 
R. Donnelly, Editors). Kluwer Academic Publishers, 
Norwell, Massachusetts, USA. 
Preston, M. L. 2005. Factors affecting winter roost 
dispersal and daily behavior of Common Ravens 
{Corvus corax) in southwestern Alberta. Northwestern 
Naturalist 86:123-130. 
Stouffer, P. C. and D. F. Caccamise. 1991. Roosting and 
diurnal movements of radio-tagged American Crows. 
Wilson Bulletin 103:387-400. 
Ward, M. P., A. Raim, S. Yaremych-Hamer, R. Lamp- 
man, and R. J. Nowak. 2006. Does the roosting 
behavior of birds affect transmission dynamics of 
West Nile virus? American Journal of Tropical 
Medicine and Hygiene 75:350-355. 
Wunder, B. A. AND J. T. Trebella. 1976. Effects of nasal 
tufts and nasal respiration on thermoregulation and 
evaporative water loss in the Common Crow. Condor 
78:564-567. 
Zmihorski, M, R. Halba, and T. D. Mazgajski. 2010. 
Long-term spatio-temporal dynamics of corvids win¬ 
tering in urban parks of Warsaw, Poland. Ornis 
Fennica 87:61-68. 
