Crow Roosts

  236 crows, that’s the number of crows that were perched in the trees on the hillside behind our house last week. This time of year their numbers start to dwindle down. We’ve had as many as 700 crows out there this winter. Usually the birds have stopped coming by this time so when I can add 236 crows to the paltry six or ten other birds I manage to find for the Great Backyard Bird Count I’m happy. Their large numbers help to make my bird count look more impressive.

   Every year the crows show up for a few months during winter. Winter crow roosts they are called. Andy posted a website at crowroosts.org where I could report my crow roost to some scientists studying them. The crows start to trickle into town around 3:00 or 4:00. Usually by sundown they are scattered all along the ridge of the hill, with as many as 50 in one tree, then once they are all gathered together they will all move on to another location.

   At one point while I was observing them there was a loud bang and a swarm of about 200 birds rose up into the air. Was the bang intentional? In some areas people use fireworks to scare the birds away. By comparison we have only a small roost at this location. There are roosts that number into the thousands. I have been reading a book called “birdology” where the author describes observing 50,000 crows in Auburn N.Y..That’s a lot of birds. That’s a lot of bird crap. The city had to train the birds not to roost in the downtown Auburn business area. People were carrying umbrellas to leave the buildings to get to their cars. Seems the only people happy with the crows were the car wash owners. They managed to get the crow roost to move elsewhere using loud recordings of crow alarm calls, fireworks and laser lights. (No crows were hurt in the process.)

   I personally have a love/hate relationship with the crows around here. I love the fact they chase off the raptors that threaten the smaller birds at my feeder, but in the spring they raid the nests of those same birds they were helping to protect. (I wonder if crows raid other crow’s nests as well.) If only all birds were as well adapted to survive as crows are. I recently read an article that said birds that live in families or groups have better survival rates because they’ll actually teach each other things to help them survive. The birds learn from the others and they will look out for each other as well.

   I haven’t seen any crows gathering on the hillside lately. Maybe they paired up while they were together in the winter and now they’ve gone off to build nests and raise families. From now on I’ll only find a few crows around here until the big influx happens again next year.