I went to this crow roost last night, and it was even better than Scott had indicated! Two other cars came to see the spectacle, but left early, disappointed that it wasn't happening as they had hoped (just a few groups of 10-30 fairly distant). We stuck around, and 5 minutes after sunset (sunset last night 6:23 PM), it started quite suddenly with hundreds of birds descending on the parking garage all around us, very loud. More and more came from at least 2 different directions. It continued until quite dark, then suddenly at 7 PM they all dropped down into the trees and became silent. They flew very close to us many times, and the noise was deafening. A very stunning spectacle for me and Adam.
We put down 5000 on eBird, but there could very well have been 10,000, as Scott had estimated. Just couldn't tell which birds we'd already counted, and they were on all sides.
Thanks to Scott for directing us to the roof of the north parking garage.
Diane Yorgason-Quinn
Gig Harbor, WA
Avosetta at hotmail.com
________________________________
From: Tweeters <
tweeters-bounces at mailman11.u.washington.edu> on behalf of Scott Ramos <
lsr at ramoslink.info>
Sent: Sunday, September 30, 2018 2:49 PM
To: Dennis Paulson
Cc: Tweeters Newsgroup
Subject: Re: [Tweeters] Bothell crow roost
Dennis,
I work in a complex just east of the UW Bothell/Cascadia CC campus. I can't speak to the crow exodus during the summer and early fall because my return home (to Seattle) is much earlier than their roosting times. However, once dusk approaches the evening commute time, the flocks of crows staging and roosting become truly impressive. The congregations tend to move around a bit from year to year, however.
Last winter, the entire area east of I-405-;due east of the campus, from NE 195th all the way south to Hwy 522-;would 'fill' with crows just before dusk as they used the lawns, buildings and trees to stage before retreating toward their roosts in the campus wetlands. Without exaggeration, you could see 1000s of crows during this period of the evening. Imagine creating a tapestry of crows with free space of about 2-3 crow-widths as packing density and you get the idea of just how many birds you could see.
On the days when my commute home-;heading west and south on 522-;was a little earlier, if you could take your eyes off the traffic, you could see one continuous river of crows as it moved north and east toward Bothell. The flocks are so thick then that they color the sky for miles. Of course, crows don't fly in any coordinated fashion, but move in the general direction of the flock, with lots of swooping up and down and back and forth.
When I have taken the time to go over to the campus, what I found productive was to drive on to the roof level of the North Parking Garage which gives a great vantage point of the wetlands area. The first time I did this, several years ago, my initial focus was on the crows coming from the region to the south and west. But, when I turned my gaze, there was another river of crows coming from the north and east. Doing a quick survey of numbers in neighboring grids of a few degrees at a time, it seemed that there could have been 10,000 crows coming from each of the two main sources. And that is probably a low-ball estimate.
Definitely worth the effort to experience this event. I'll post an update when the numbers and timing are noteworthy.
Scott Ramos
Seattle
>
On Sep 30, 2018, at 8:09 AM, Dennis Paulson <dennispaulson at comcast.net> wrote:
>
>
Hello tweets,
>
>
I've thought about visiting the crow roost at Cascadia Community College in Bothell for some years but have never got around to it. Does anyone out there know what the seasonal parameters are of the roost? Are they going there in large numbers now, or does it get better later in the winter?
>
>
Thanks.
>
>
Dennis Paulson
>
Seattle
>
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