On New Year’s Day, Bob and I opened the New Year with a trip to you know where!!!
It was a very windy afternoon and we watched as the crows came in low and stay out of the wind.
We began as usual in the New Balance Parking Lot, having seen a few hundred on the ground in the So. Common Park as we drove in. We saw crows headed to the south.
We decided to watch from So. Canal St. We drove in and parked facing east in front of the truck depot gate. That night the crows poured in from all directions and alighted on the roofs of the two B & D Warehouse roofs mainly. More and more streamed it. Later on what appeared to be mainly Fish Crows moved down to the low bushes and on the ground in the back of the New Balance Overflow employee parking lot to the south of us. None on the wires.
Then the fun began as wave after wave lifted up off the roof – some flew to the top of the New Balance Building, some flew out over the river, other swirled around and settled back down. Thousands of birds in the air at once. It was hard from where we were perched to see them going into the roost. Hard enough so you even questioned if they were going there. As darkness settled in, we even drove back to the New Balance Factory Parking Lot to see them slowly moving into the roost trees.
January 2nd we were joined by 8 folks- Betty & Mick Wiley, Bill Hobbie and his wife, Rajesh and Dipka Mohan, Nancy Smith and Judy Parrot-Willis. Those that had come the furthest were from South Yarmouth. It was a totally different afternoon. The temperatures were in the 30’s but there was practically no wind. Crows were in the park as we drove by and from the parking lot were seen flying to the south so up on the garage roof we went. It was such a delight. The crows were seen in the tree tops to the south in a long line of trees from the park to some distance to the east. The numbers in the tree tops grew and grew. Looking to the west, we were greeted with wave upon wave of crows coming in out of the west and the delight of seeing them winging their way toward us against the beautiful sunset, the old mill smoke stacks and the tall church spires. Folks loved getting them silhouetted against the setting sun as they perched in the near-by trees. The din of so many crows just stuns you. As time went on ,many streamed in from the east over the old mill building, some came in swirling around the clock tower. Crows built up in greater and greater numbers on the roof of B & D Warehouse below us.
Suddenly, the movement of the distance tree top crows began towards the roofs below and finally the move, as dusk approached, to the roost as they swirled west around the New Balance Building. We all left the roof at dusk and saw thousands pouring off the roof over Merrimack St. towards the roost. Judy, Nancy, Bob and I went out onto the west side of Duck Bridge and thoroughly enjoyed watching them coming into the thin line of roost trees and listening to their many calls and as it got to be 5 PM the whole group quieting down. We all especially enjoyed seeing them strung along a thin branch watching as each new arrival bent the branch lower and on the north side closer to the water’s edge.
What a wonderful night.
And as they say, wish you were there.
Dana
Dana Duxbury-Fox
North Andover, MA
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