Subject: Crow roosts
Date: Oct 31 17:38:20 1998
From: Ruth Taylor - rutht at seanet.com


On 10/30/98, Rob Conway wrote about crows going to roost:

< the birds were coming from far and wide through the I90 gap at Eastgate.
Many were congregating or staging or resting or ???? in a grove of trees
directly south of the Attachmate construction site just off of I90 in
Factoria. Some were
stopping on the roof of the Factoria mall. Some were just flying straight
through.
I've seen other large roosts of crows, at the Montlake Cut for instance,
but this group just seemed to dwarf those numbers. What drives these
large fall/winter roosts?>

I'll let those who have expertise with corvids deal with the whys and
wherefores of crow roosts. However, I highly recommend visiting one; it's
fascinating!
A couple of years ago, Ellen Blackstone (who loves crows) somehow persuaded
me (don't like crows) to visit the roost near the Montlake Cut. The roost at
that time was concentrated behind the Center for Urban Horticulture, with a
pre-roost "staging" area at the west edge of Laurelhurst. When I arrived in
Laurelhurst a little before sunset, there were several thousand crows
clustered in the largest deciduous trees, with more pouring in from the
north and west. (Laurelhurst residents were clustered outside, too, looking
up.) Great swells of crows took flight simultaneously and shifted from one
set of trees to another, moving west and down toward the water as it got
darker. There was a continual racket of crow chatter going on, but
intermittently this rose to a crescendo that was reminiscent of a chorus of
thousands; then the sound would dwindle to silence. And so on and so on.
Eventually, they seemed to slip from the trees into silent obscurity; it was
over, and it was almost dark.
I still don't like crows, but I've been back several times. It would be
well worth the time to try to find the one Rob described and to watch the
spectacle.

Ruth Taylor
Seattle WA
rutht at seanet.com