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downtown crows in trees

2016. Portland, Oregon

Not a great video, but an experience I didn't want to forget.
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27 comments

Malik Raoulda said:

Magnifique,c'etait un grand rassemblement de corbeaux.
3 years ago ( translate )

raingirl replied to Malik Raoulda:

Glad you like it. I was fascinated. They stayed for a few weeks. They were so wonderful to drive through. But they were making a mess of the downtown blocks where they were gathering. So the city hired a hawk (yes, really!) to come hang out in the area and the crows split off to different parts of the city in smaller groups.
3 years ago

Xata said:

When I was young, in Faro on the front sea trees birds used to gather at sunset for the night. In Lisbon's Rossio the same, I remember as student go there just for the show.
Here in Monte Gordo the same happens, but in a much more modest proportion than in your really impressive film.
3 years ago

raingirl replied to Xata:

This happened in the winter for a couple years in a row. The second year the city hired a trained hawk to split the crows up and disperse them. The hawk didn't kill them!

But I was sad, because I loved them. At least they were handled humanely.
3 years ago

Ulrich John said:

That’s really interesting, Raingirl ! Guten Morgen !
3 years ago ( translate )

raingirl replied to Ulrich John:

Glad you enjoyed it! I loved seeing them, and got to for many days in a row.
3 years ago

Steve Bucknell said:

Get out of there now! Haven’t you seen The Birds?
3 years ago

raingirl replied to Steve Bucknell:

Ha ha! I know!! And I have. But somehow these were very friendly seeming even in their large numbers. Maybe they were spread out enough to not scare me! I have been scared by crows in the past, and all because of that movie!!!!!
3 years ago

HappySnapper said:

Don't leave the car parked to long, It can get messy !
3 years ago

raingirl replied to HappySnapper:

Indeed! After a few weeks the city dispersed the birds with a hired hawk for that very reason (the hawk is trained not to kill the birds). They were having to do major cleanup of the sidewalks every day.
3 years ago

Jean said:

That was wonderful. I love the way they gather at sunset and there were so many in rather lovely trees too. What I see here are geese flying over morning and evening. They winter on a nearby loch but fly out in daylight to feed .
3 years ago

raingirl replied to Jean:

So glad you liked it. We have a lot of trees in our downtown area (through the whole city actually) and many parks. This and the year before or after was the largest gathering. I found them quite pleasant, feeling much more connected to nature in the middle of town.

How nice that you get to see those geese. I only see those a couple times of year as they migrate, and they aren't landing anywhere near me.
3 years ago

Peter Castell said:

A great capture Laura do you know what they are ? Some years ago about this time of the year tens of thousands of starlings used to come into Leicester for the Winter it was said they came from Russia they made a terrible mess, fortunately they don't come now
3 years ago

raingirl replied to Peter Castell:

They are crows. We are supposed to have ravens here as well, but I've never seen them in Portland. Starlings can be a handful. But we get a wonderful migration of Vaux's swifts that come through town. We used to live a block from the elementary school where the swifts stop over and sleep in the tall chimney. It is an amazing spectacle. These days thousands of people come to see about 16,000 swifts swirl around and eventually at sunset all disappear into the chiminey seemingly all at once. When my daughter went to that school, they couldn't turn on the furnace until the swifts had moved on their way to the next migration spot! Some years it was quite cold before they could warm the school. But a number of years ago the local audobon society raised funds to upgrade the school's heating system, so now the chimney is only there for the swifts. Here is a video showing them (Sadly I never took any when I lived there.)
You can find videos with explanations, but this one shows the birds in the air best. They are amazing. Check out around the middle of the video (it's only about 2:30 minutes long) where you can see the swirl dumping into the chimney:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHgEAIK8P18&t=40s&ab_channel=JuliaChapin
3 years ago

Sami Serola (inactiv… said:

So many crows! =O

Around here we only have flocks of jackdaws like that.
3 years ago