Wednesday, January 29, 2020 // The Statement
6B
What’s with the crows?
I
t’s late. You’re walking home from
somewhere on campus, maybe
Mason Hall or the Michigan
League. Walking through the cold,
wintery night air, you hear drops on the
ground and movements in the trees. You
look up and see dozens — even hundreds
— of American black crows peppering the
branches. You bolt, hearing more drops,
while covering your head and ducking.
If you’ve seen the Alfred Hitchcock
film, “Birds”, you let out a yell, causing
the birds to take off into the night sky.
Hopefully you’ve made a daring escape
from the crows, averting a crisis … for
now.
I’ve found myself in this scenario
more than a few times. I want to be
clear, though: I am not afraid of birds.
As a child, I would go birdwatching with
my dad, and still today our shelves are
filled with many editions of “The Sibley
Guide to Birds.” Rather, I find that birds
have a mystique about them. My friends
and I were once confronted by a man in
Washington, D.C. who claimed that birds
aren’t real. The basis for his theory was
that none of us have touched a bird so,
therefore, birds can’t possibly be real.
Now even ads on my social media have
been trying to sell me “Birds Aren’t Real”
t-shirts. But these murders of crows in
Ann Arbor certainly are real (yes, the
term “murder” to refer to a group of
crows is also real).
Assistant Professor Ben Winger, the
University of Michigan’s curator of
birds, had the answers to all my burning
questions concerning the crows. The
best way to avoid them is in the daylight.
The only trace of the crows during the
daytime is their “whitewash,” which
is a “polite term” for bird poop used by
Winger during our interview. He also
told me that the American crow, known
scientifically as Corvus brachyrhynchos,
tends to become more social in the winter.
“A lot of (crow) species form these big
roosts in the winter. They’re not unique
to Ann Arbor,” Winger said. “... Basically
during the wintertime, when there’s not
much food and it’s colder in a lot of places,
crows will just form these enormous
nighttime roosts and they’ll become very
social.”
These roosts can be seen in Ann Arbor
in the nighttime, as leafless trees become
covered with black tops. While the exact
reason for this roosting is not known,
Winger gave a number of ideas.
“One idea is, first of all, it’s a safety in
numbers type thing so they can better
avoid predators when they’re in flocks,”
Winger said. “Another idea is that food
is really scarce in the winter, but crows
are very smart and they’re very social
and they can probably exchange a lot of
information amongst each other about
where food is.”
The city of Ann Arbor, compared to
woods or fields, seems to be a haven
for crows due to its warmth and light
sources, which is to the advantage of
crows, according to Winger.
“And as for why Ann Arbor, it’s actually
not uncommon for them to be around
towns … It’s probably a combination
of it being a little bit warmer than the
surrounding environment but also I
think the light, since the campus is
pretty well lit at night,” Winger said. “So
in some contexts, artificial light is bad for
birds but in this context, the crows might
prefer it because they can more easily
spot owls and other predators.”
Unlike Hitchcock’s 1963 horror classic,
the crows will not be attacking humans
anytime soon.
“I don’t think they’re a threat to other
species and they’re not a threat to humans
either, I should add,” Winger said.
Though it’s slightly disappointing to
know that it’s unnecessary to run from
the crows in terms of avoiding attack,
some people in the past have gone
to extreme measures to avoid them.
According to the Audubon Society, the
United States’ eminent association of
birders, one extermination effort in the
past has included the “dynamiting of
winter roosts.”
Engineering freshman Vanya Lazarevic
is quite familiar with the crows at Helen
Newberry Residence Hall. She thought
the birds — which she initially mistook to
be geese — were just passing through for
a day or two. Now, Lazarevic is struggling
to get a good night’s sleep with the crows
roosting outside for months.
“I feel like it was fine the first two weeks
but the fact that they just keep returning
is just very annoying.” Lazarevic said.
“I actually slept with earbuds in and it
helped. Light sleepers don’t have it easy.”
While the crows have disturbed her
sleeping, the whitewash left behind is
also unpleasant. Often patches of campus
will be covered in white splotches from
the crows roosting above, coloring
anything from the sidewalks to cars a
shade of white with specks of brown.
“Just stepping in bird poop in the
morning is not a mood,” Lazarevic said.
“You can’t just get rid of the crows.”
The presence of crow feces across
campus is unpleasant, and there’s some
speculation that it could drive away
prospective students and visitors to
campus.
With this being my fourth winter at
the University, I told Lazarevic that this
is not a one-time deal: The crows are
a wintertime staple in Ann Arbor. Her
response: “I hate that.”
In my research about the crows, I
came across an article published by The
Daily in 2011. Robert Payne, a former
University professor, estimated a count
of 10,000 crows in Ann Arbor while the
Washtenaw County Audubon Society
chapter counted 30,000 in their annual
Christmas bird count. I interviewed
Sherri
Smith,
an
Audobon
Society
member since the 1980s and a former
president of the chapter, to hear the
thoughts of a true local birder.
Smith finds the crows fascinating
because of their intelligence and unique
behavior. When I asked about the
numbers from the annual bird count,
she said they weren’t able to get a good
count because of the sheer size and the
movement of the crows, but she did offer
an estimate.
“I’d guess there’s 11,000 or 12,000,”
Smith said.
Smith provided the best analogy for
when the crows can be seen flying at
dusk.
“They all take off like a tornado going
to wherever they’re going to spend the
night.”
I’ve witnessed the site a number of
times, always whipping my phone out
to film the spectacle. Looking through
my Snapchat memories, I find videos
from across campus filming the crows
covering the night sky. Most recently,
seemingly hundreds came flying over the
Intramural Sports Building.
The
crows
were
the
subject
of
an op-ed to The Daily last year, calling
for sustainable practices to control
the crow population. There have been
efforts in the past, though some were
illegal and not very sustainable — such
as the mass poisoning of crows in 2008
and 2009, which was investigated by
the Department of Natural Resources.
An
article
published
by
Michigan
News,
the
University-run
media
service, informed the public that flare
guns were being used to scare off the
crows. Smith also mentioned that in
the past, a University employee told
her they used firecrackers to scare off
the crows. In 2016, the LSA Student
Government passed a resolution calling
on the Ann Arbor government to
investigate the crow population.
The fact of the matter is that crows
like Ann Arbor for the lights, trees and
warmth. No, they aren’t going to fly down
and peck at you. I find the hundreds
of crows flying reminiscent of David
Attenborough’s Planet Earth, almost like
the crows are some exotic species flying
in the thousands to evade predators. This
isn’t to say I — like the majority of campus
— don’t have a distaste for the crows, I
certainly do, but they’re not the boring
creature one might presume them to be.
So, when you’re strolling home after a
long day and the sidewalks are quiet and
deserted, look up. You might find some
friendly faces dropping gifts for you as
you pass by.
BY FINNTAN STORER, STATEMENT CORRESPONDENT
ILLUSTRATION BY JOHNATHAN WALSH