The crows at the Montlake Fill stage there before flying across to their
Foster Island roost. This roost at one time contained perhaps 10,000 crows,
though that number appears to have dropped a bit in recent years to ca.
6000. We try to count them as they leave at dawn on the Christmas Bird
Count. There's another roost of ca. 5000 on the Newport Beach shore of Lake
Washington. They appear to spread out from these roost all over the city
during the day. Prof. John Marzluff and students at the UW have been
studying local crow populations and should have more precise information.

Gene Hunn.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Guttman, Burt" <GuttmanB at evergreen.edu>
To: <Bobvanden at aol.com>; <tweeters at u.washington.edu>;
<corvid at u.washington.edu>
Sent: Sunday, January 18, 2004 4:42 PM
Subject: RE: A few crows at Montlake Fill


> How common is this sort of event? 2,540 is a huge number of course--I've
> never seen that many all together--but we've probably all seen similar
> gatherings. I've usually found crows gathering like this when they
discover
> some poor owl and swarm around its perch all excited and cawing like
crazy;
> sometimes the owl flies to another location and they all follow it. But I
> gather there was no owl in this case. My daughter and I were in Florida
for
> a few days last week, and at least 100 crows were all gathered at one
> location there (around midday), but not very excited and with no owl in
> sight. The same group (probably) moved about a quarter to a half mile
away
> the next day, but just gathered, not doing anything obvious together.
Since
> Bob saw this around 4 p.m., could it have been a big overnight roost? I'm
> sure there must be a big roost somewhere west of Olympia, because as
evening
> approaches we see crows from the whole area headed that way; I've sort of
> promised someone that I'll try to find the place, but I haven't had time
> yet. Does anyone know more about what's going on?
>
> Burt Guttman guttmanb at evergreen.edu
> The Evergreen State College
> Olympia, WA 98505 360-456-8447
> Home: 7334 Holmes Island Road S.E., Olympia 98503
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Bobvanden at aol.com [mailto:Bobvanden at aol.com]
> Sent: Friday, January 16, 2004 2:04 PM
> To: tweeters at u.washington.edu; corvid at u.washington.edu
> Subject: A few crows at Montlake Fill
>
>
> About 4 pm yesterday, Jan. 15, there were at least 2,540 crows, as counted
> by
> counting numbers of groups of about 10 crows, within 300 yards on either
> side
> or the Ravenna Creek slough. Less than half were in trees, with the dime
lot
>
> parking lot and the baseball field and the field north of it covered with
> crows.
> Bob Vandenbosch