It is also much easier to spot a flying object from the ground then a ground object from the air. This is why recon is so hard when looking for something from

It is also much easier to spot a flying object from the ground then a ground object from the air. This is why recon is so hard when looking for something from the sky. It is even easier to locate object in the air from the air. So effectively to piggy-back on your suggestion crows in the air would be able to see other avian creatures and report on their location faster than they could spot 2 creatures sneaking through the undergrowth. In which case speed would no longer be very beneficial because aware of the threat (birds being greater than 2 unseen hobbits), you could then mount an attack on the birds. When balancing stealth and speed I think you can make a strong argument that stealth in this case would be much more important. Of course this is assuming you are looking for the birds... most land creatures just don't look up very often.