Crow Patrol Wednesday March 6th –
Temp 24 degrees, wind 10 mph out of the west, sunset at 5:38 pm.
Last night Bob and I went out on Crow Patrol about 4:45 pm and drove by the Riverside State Park seeing just a couple of crows. We checked in at the boathouse – again no birds so on to Industrial Way. A few crows were streaming in from the south on the west side of the New Balance Distribution Building. On to the Affinity parking lot – more were gathered along the river and in the trees to the west. Back to Andover St. and into Andover Place where beyond the initial buildings, crows were beginning to gather, many were on the ground in the swampy areas on both the left and the right. A few on roof tops and in the trees – 2,500 birds.
Craig Gibson had passed through minutes before and said and had none further west. Back to the Riverside State Park where Craig said birds were being seen. A few visitors were watching with him. Hundreds of Crows in waves were starting to move in from the west over the northern hill side – not over the river as the night before. Some started to come from the east over the land too. You could see them perched in the tallest trees on the far hillside but none by the river – in stark contrast to the night before.
We stayed the longest and watched them eventually sliding eastward along the far tree tops. By 6:15 we left to try and find where they had settled but it was probably too late to do this as it was getting dark by then. We went north on Rt. 28 and then cut west as if to go to the cemeteries and then turned south at the rotary near the cemetery and despite driving all around and eventually driving down Ames St. to Water St. – we saw no roosting crows. They had outwitted us again!!
Bob counted about 12,000 crows but many could have come in from the north and not been visible to us . Why they suddenly do something new is still a great mystery. Possibly, this is why we return again and again to see what new excitement they will evoke another night and hoping we may someday figure out why they do what they do!!!
We will be on Patrol tonight Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights. Please come very soon if you wish to see the show this year as they soon will be staying on their nesting territory or heading far north to establish one.
Email me if you would like to join us.
Dana Duxbury-Fox
danafox@comcast.net
North Andover, MA
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