Only 3 Days To Find the Crows!

American crow closeup (photo from Wikimedia Commons)

27 December 2023

This Saturday, 30 December, is Pittsburgh’s annual Christmas Bird Count when we confirm the number of crows that come to town for the winter. Usually the count is 20,000 so after they skunked me three years ago (I counted only 220!) it’s been my mission to find the roost and count them all.

Last week I was confident that, thanks to you, we had found the crows. Carol Steytler saw them roosting near Heinz Lofts on 16 December so I went down there on the 19th — before I left town for the holiday — and saw more than 10,000 streaming in from Troy Hill to Heinz Lofts. I thought the Crow Count was going to be easy.

Hah! The crows have something else in mind.

Crows roosting at Allegheny River near Heinz Lofts, 7 Feb 2021, 7:40pm (photo by Kate St. John)

On Sunday 24 December Carol told me the crows were GONE! They weren’t near Heinz Lofts and when she drove around yesterday from 5-7pm she couldn’t find them anywhere!

Are we going to let 20,000 crows avoid the Count? No!

If you see a steady stream of crows at dusk please tell me where you saw them and where they were going.

Crows streaming past near Troy Hill (photo by Jeff Cieslak)

If you see crows at sunset making a racket in the trees, please tell me where they were!

There are only 3 days left until Pittsburgh’s Christmas Bird Count and (yikes!) I’m still out of town. Please help me find the crows!