The Still Creek Crow Roost is like a nesting doll of crow stories.
It’s an action-packed epic with a cast of thousands — bringing to mind, in scale and scope, something like Lord of the Rings or Ben Hur (depending on your generational terms of reference.)
But if you stay awhile you start to notice that there’s also a whole lot of When Harry Met Sally and Monty Python going on too!
We took in the show for our Valentine’s Day date night — no reservations necessary — and only a 50/50 chance of getting pooped on. We know how to have a good time!
It was the first time we’d visited the roost for a long time. I’d been worried that it might be too depressing to see a depletion of the roost after all of the development in the area, plus avian flu.
But anyway, for some reason, we felt like being in the company of thousands of crows for Valentine’s, so off we went — and it was as amazing as ever.
When you’re in the middle of the roost, it feels like a whole world of crows. The tide of birds flowing in from all directions feels like one expansive and purposeful being.
It takes a while to get used to the cacophony created by thousands of crows cawing and yelling over each other — although their calls are a minor note amid the roar of rush hour traffic. The sheer kinetic energy generated by thousands of birds moving in large groups can also be a little disorienting at first.
Once your mind adjusts to the volume and scale of it all, you can sometimes focus in on some of the small crow moments going on amid the mayhem.
For example, the little scene in the video below …
The yelling second-to-left crow on the street light seems to be a traffic marshal, directing the flow of birds with a continuous series of barked directions.
“Your party is booked in for the Hydro wires tonight, so keep left. Next! OK, your group has reservations for the MacDonald’s roof, so hard right here. Keep moving!!”
Comic relief is provided by another crow and their repeated efforts to land on the steeply curved end of the lamp. I’ve seen this routine many times and in many places — as less experienced crows try to make that tricky technical calculation regarding the camber and surface slipperiness of a typical street light. It takes a while for the young ones to learn that you can only fit so many crows on these lamps — and the last one to arrive always gets the vexingly convex end of the stick.
A few other moments from date-night at the roost ….
A flurry of last minute indecision — branches or wires for the night’s lodgings?
A bald eagle flies over, white head feathers red-gold in the evening sun.
As the light fades, the crows turn into gauzy ghost birds.
Tricks of the light turn them into even more ethereal looking creatures.
All in all, five stars and no notes as far as Valentine’s Day outing go!
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Note: I see that these previous posts were written on another Valentine’s Day and a New Year’s Eve, so clearly the roost is one of my preferred places to celebrate special occasions!
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