29 December 2024
We tried nevertheless it was daunting. Final night Carol Steytler, Claire Staples, Lisa Kaufman and I counted crows coming into the roost close to the VA Hospital in Oakland for the Pittsburgh Christmas Fowl Depend. 15,000 crows. Kind of. Most likely extra.
For an correct depend we wanted all these situations to be met concurrently and all of them are underneath the crows’ management. Final night time the crows beat us with blobs and darkness.
- Know the place the roost is.
- Know the flight paths they use to achieve the roost.
- Know the scale within the sky of a blob of 100 or 1,000 crows and have the ability to see the blobs.
Darkness: Right here’s what I imply. You possibly can’t see the crow till I alter the photograph (from Wikimedia Commons). Nor may we.
Particulars of the depend:
The crows used the identical roost web site (kind of) that we discovered on Friday: the VA Hospital roof + close by buildings. Miraculously they didn’t change the roost. Nonetheless, the roof itself is simply too excessive to see so we used flight-path counting from the OC Lot parking deck. I’m positive some had been hidden by buildings as they got here in and weren’t counted.
Flight paths change everyday however Saturday’s was higher than Friday’s from their pre-roost staging web site to our west, backlit by the glow of sundown as proven at prime. Very quickly it was too darkish to see black birds in a black sky. And the crows had been regularly diverted by Stat MedEvac helicopters flying forwards and backwards from UPMC Presbyterian.
Crow flock flight density — the blobs — modified on a regular basis in fact. We noticed 100 crows in lengthy strings, in very tight balls, and the whole lot in between. Laborious to depend.
I’ve been counting crows for the CBC since 2018. It’s at all times a problem.
15,000 crows? We’ll by no means know for positive.
The crows are in all probability laughing at us.
p.s. Lisa and I are pondering of training the blob-count subsequent month whereas the crows are nonetheless on the town. In case you have a suggestion for counting you should first depend with us this winter. (I’m not kidding!)
In case you’re an skilled crow counter no want to hitch us; we welcome your ideas.
