6 December 2024
Since late October visiting crows have been pouring into town to join Pittsburgh’s enormous winter crow flock. Their numbers in Shadyside and Oakland grew from 3,600 in mid-October to over 8,000 in mid-November … and then I lost track of them because they moved the roost and changed their flight path.
Alas! The flock is still growing — perhaps to 20,000! — and just three weeks from now on Sat. 28 December will be the annual Pittsburgh Christmas Bird Count (CBC) when we’ll confirm the number of crows that come to town for the winter. If we can find them.
I had hopes last Saturday 30 November when Betty Rowland saw a huge flock staging at Schenley Park’s golf course, photo above. But when Betty checked again on Monday the crows were completely gone.
Our winter crows change or split their roost often in late December because they wear out their welcome so quickly. (See examples here.) So where are they now?
Please help. Let me know where you see lots of crows just before sunset or at night in the city and/or Allegheny County. Tell me about …
- Huge flocks of crows
- After 4:00pm
- Where are they?
- If flying, what direction are they going?
Your sightings are especially important in the week before the CBC, December 22-27.
To get you in the mood, here’s a video from Winter Crow Roost in Lawrence, Massachusetts where they’ve ramped up crow counting with photography and videos. Woo hoo!
For more about counting crows in Lawrence, MA see their website at Winter Crow Roost.
That video was fascinating. It would be interesting to do something similar in terms of the crows roosting in Pittsburgh.
This afternoon, they were staging in the trees above lower Greenfield Ave., as I could observe from the Swinburne Street Bridge.
We saw a fair amount last Wed on Homewood Ave between Finance St and Thomas Blvd