Pittsburgh and Wheeling aren’t the only towns with big winter crow flocks.

I read in yesterday’s Centre Daily Times that Penn State is tired of the 3,000 crows who come to campus every winter and roost in the big trees around town.  The poop is getting to everyone, so staff from the Office of Physical Plant are spending this week making a heck of a lot of noise to get the crows to move.  They have experience doing it.  This is their second winter of “The Crow Wars.”

Beginning about an hour after sunset, OPP staff shoot fireworks and noisemakers into the sky with the object of scaring the crows to a less populated roosting location.  Crows like to sleep with the lights on so Penn State floodlit a stand of trees at a preferred roosting site by the Visitors Center.  “Preferred” by humans, that is.

Will the crows take the hint?  Will they learn to love the Visitors Center?  Only time will tell.

(December 2011 note:  The original Centre Daily Times article has disappeared from their website. The photo above is from a Penn State News slideshow about Margaret Brittingham‘s & Grant Stokke’s Lancaster crow roost study. Click on the photo to see the original.)

The crows are back in town, raucous as ever!  Thousands flew over my house this morning.

When I showed this photo to my husband we both started to laugh.  The crows look so much like a gang that my husband began to sing When You’re A Jet from West Side Story.  (He knows all these songs by heart because his parents were really into Broadway musicals.)  Soon he was inventing crow lyrics.  Soon he had written a crow version of the song.  And so was born…

South Side Story

Coal: Hey, Biff, getta load on what them filthy pigeons are doin’…

Biff:  Them?  With their stupid green heads and silly pink galoshes?  We’ve already laughed ‘em off the street…

Coal:  Oh yeah? Well they’ve moved into the parking lot down at the Giant Eagle.

Midnight:  Yeah, they’re takin’ over OUR dumpsters.

Sulfur:  [chiming in timidly] One of ‘em swiped a cheeto I had my dibs on…

Biff:  Well, don’t worry, we’ll take care of them – because we’re CROWS!

When you’re a Crow
You’re as black as the night.
You’re as sleek as cold steel
and you’re ready for flight.

When you’re a Crow
You are sure of respect.
You’ve got boys in your roost.
You’ve got cards in your deck.

     The Crows are in gear,
     our cylinders are clickin’.
     You Pigeons stay clear --
     cause once you’re in the pot
     you know you taste like chicken!

When you’re a Crow
well, you’ve been to Crow school.
You can poke open bags.
You can even make tools.

You can steal a gold ring.
You can gang up on cats.
You can count up to five.
You’re a bird and a half!

When you’re a Crow
You’re an Army of One
You make plans for the day
and your plans all get done.

     Here come the Crows,
     we are cruisin’ your way!
     We are takin’ the mirror
     from that new Chevrolet.
     We are climbing the curbs
     and we’re eating old meat.
     We are chasing the rats.
     We are claiming this street!

Once you’ve been marked
With a capital C
You’re the top-perching bird
any pole, any tree.

When you’re a Crow
You can chortle and caw
You don’t "sing," man, you SHOUT
And your word is the law.

     You Pigeons watch out
     Cause we’re namin’ your name.
     We’re not takin’ crap,
     you are outta this game.

     You’ll be feeling our heat.
     You’ll be tasting our juice.
     So, get off of our wires…
     Cause
     ...We
     ......Rule
     .........The Roost!

— light verse for crows by Richard St. John with a huge tip of the hat to Stephen Sondheim and West Side Story.  Here are the original lyrics.  Photo by Marcy Cunkelman.

1 or 2…  10 or 20…  100 or 200.

That’s what it’s been like to count crows around here this fall.

In August I could always find 1 or 2.  In September it was normal to see 10 or 20.  Now the winter crow flock is gathering in the East End of Pittsburgh and I see 100 or 200 fly over my house at dawn.

Why stop there?

Soon there’ll be 1,000 to 2,000 and by the time we do the Christmas Bird Count in late December we’ll have 10,000, maybe even 20,000 crows.  At that point they’ll change their staging areas frequently, just to keep us on our toes while we’re counting crows.

(photo by Chuck Tague)

Early one morning in Maine I heard a girl calling in the woods, “Ho!”  When I looked for the voice I found a young raven.

Crows and ravens are in the same family but they aren’t friends.  Crows are smaller and sometimes preyed upon by the smarter more powerful ravens, so crows raise the alarm – if appropriate – when they see a raven.

I say “if appropriate” because crows are careful.  If they don’t think they can safely make a ruckus they quietly leave the scene.  But if the raven is at a disadvantage, watch out!

That morning at Acadia I saw two ravens fly over the road.  About ten minutes later six crows showed up.  As they approached, a crow called from one of the trees but instead of happily joining one of their own the flock zoomed into the tree scolding loudly.  They had surrounded an immature raven speaking “crow.”

The young raven was at a disadvantage so he changed his tune and called, “Ho!”  I’d heard that sound the day before and thought it was a girl calling to her companions on the hiking trail.

Ravens are great mimics so perhaps this one had listened to a real person. He called again, his parent returned, and the crows quickly dispersed.

His call for help worked, even though it was the sound of a human voice.

p.s. You can tell this raven is immature by the red skin at his gape (beak).

(photo from Shutterstock)

I’ve been frustrated by the lack of crows lately.  Every winter for the past four years thousands of crows used to fly over my house at dusk and dawn.  This winter after one spectacular showing on November 18th they’ve been absent from the area. 

This doesn’t mean there are no crows in Pittsburgh.  Far from it.  They’ve just moved the roost.  But where? 

Yesterday I decided to find out.  I’d heard about a large flock of crows on South Side and my friend Karen saw hundreds in the Strip District a week ago.  Armed with two clues, my first move was to check out the South Side so I went up to Billy Buck Hill for a wide view of the Mon Valley, Downtown and Oakland.  There wasn’t much crow movement but every flock was headed for the far side of the Hill District.  By 4:15pm it was obvious I was in the wrong place.  I should be on Polish Hill. 

As I drove out Bigelow Boulevard I found a huge flock gathering in the trees above the road.  What smart crows!  This site is inaccessible, there are no buildings, and foot traffic is impossible because the Boulevard has high speed traffic without sidewalks.  After a lot of maneuvering I managed to turn around and pull into Frank Curto Park.  From there I could see thousands of crows flying in from the North Side.  Behind me thousands more piled in from the East End.  The numbers kept building.  There was no end in sight.

Frank Curto Park is a creepy place, only accessible by car on a narrow one-way lane.  I didn’t want to be there at dusk so after another time-consuming maneuver I parked on Polish Hill near the West Penn Rec. Center.

By then the distant hillside from Bigelow to the railroad tracks was covered in crows.  More were still arriving and they began to do The Wave, rising up in dense shouting circles that reminded me of snow geese at Middle Creek.  Night was falling fast but I could see the waves were not returning to the hillside.  Each flock landed closer to the valley. 

I crossed the 28th Street Bridge and I found them again, this time on the roof of Liberty Commons.  As I pulled into the parking lot I wasn’t alone.  Another car followed me trying to take pictures of flying crows.  I jumped when the other car honked but the crows did not.  Birds continued to collect on the roof. 

By now the sky was so dark I couldn’t see more than a hundred yards.  If the crows made a move I wouldn’t be able to follow.  Besides, I felt confident I’d found the roost.  Then silently, in the dark, the crows streamed off the roof until all of them were gone. 

But where?

(photo by Chuck Tague)