Gray crows (lat. Corvus cornix) are one of the brightest representatives of the avifauna of cities; these birds have perfectly adapted to the urban environment and easily cope with competition.

In the spring, you can watch how the crows begin to repair old and build new nests. The male chooses a site, and the female looks for a suitable fork in the trunk. When the nest is ready, the female sits down to incubate eggs, there are about 4-7 of them in the clutch. The eggs are greenish or grayish-blue in color with dark brownish-gray spots and stains.

An annual count of crow’s nests in the gardens of the Russian Museum showed that the most attractive tree for building nests is linden. Perhaps this is due to the predominance of trees of this species in gardens. Based on long-term observations, we can say that in the Summer Garden there are 1-2 nests of crows per hectare, and in Mikhailovsky – 1 nest. At the same time, the number of crows in the Mikhailovsky Garden is an order of magnitude higher than in the Summer Garden, which is associated with their feeding by visitors to this garden. This, in turn, affects the lower number of small bird species in the Mikhailovsky Garden, which is confirmed by many years of counts of all bird species in the gardens of the Russian Museum.