Wednesday evening the 10th of March was a spectacular night watching the staging and roosting of what is now the North Andover/Lawrence Crows.
-- The weather was ideal - so much warmer, no precipitation, practically no wind, and a beautiful sunset.
We began as usual watching the staging of the Crows last night with Emily and Bob of Waltham.
We met an hour before sunset (4:45 pm) at the Lawrence Airport which is actually in North Andover off of Sutton St. and focussed looking out from Gate 1. Last night the main staging occurred to the west along the far western runways. You were looking through the fence into the sun and they were distant. As usual, the early "resident" crows came in in small numbers. After much discussion and showing our guests the layout of the city from that hilltop location with the Merrimack River at the bottom of the hill, we went out to Sutton St. and turned west down the hill. There were 2-3,000 crows there then.
We turned into Charles St. which is below the level of the runway. We parked with a great view of the western sky and watched the crows streaming in initially in small flocks mostly from the west. A few came down the river from the northeast. Suddenly, flocks of thousands of "migrant" crows came from the southwest first as distant specks only visible through your binos and then as "licorice with wings" as Wayne Petersen of Mass Audubon likes to call them. We could not have seen large flocks coming in from the east from that location.
The sounds of thousands of crows began to build up and suddenly at least 15 minutes after sunset, the river of crows passed over Charles Street headed to their final Staging area near the river to the west.
We then moved to the end of No. Main St. where we parked in front of the North Andover Water Department gate and watched the show of their final staging. There still was considerable light in the western sky and the noise and swirling back and forth still impresses me despite the number of nights I have watched the show. All of the mature trees around us periodically had masses of crows sitting in them. From one tree close by, I could hear many Fish Crows.
Now it is dark - just what the crows had been waiting for. Now they will slowly enter the roost that night. This is the third roost local this winter.They seek those trees right along the river that are not more than 30 feet high - mainly Silver Maple and River Birch. Just like the ones in their initial roosting location along the New Balance Factory on the far side of the next bridge across the river. We moved down to 110 Sutton St., the dance studio's back parking lot to pear through the mature trees in front of us, across the river into the tops of the roost trees on the north side of the river beginning just to the east of the Rt. 495 bridge over the river. They fill them in slowly at least to the bend in the river.
There was no way you could get an orderly count that night. My Bob believes there were over 17,000 birds.
Please note I have used "main staging", "final staging", and "roost" to mark the various periods of the nightly ritual. And I have used "resident" and "migrant" crows to differentiate between the initial crows and those that come in in large flocks after sunset.
So above you have a menu and timing guide for watching the staging and roosting of the North Andover/Lawrence Crows.
Please come and enjoy the spectacle before the migrants move north and the resident crows stay on their nesting territory. It truly is a phenomena not to be missed.
Dana Duxbury-Fox
North Andover MA
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