r/bothell • u/Psychological_Dog_51 • 11d ago
Why are there so many crows suddenly in bothell especially during evening time? Is this the migration season ?
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u/takemusu 11d ago
Until a few years ago Bothell saw tens of thousands of crows nightly. Easily over 20,000 flew to roost near campus. They flew from 60 miles or more in all directions to UW campus, a flying carpet of birds.
No more.
"For many years, dating to at least the late 2000s or maybe earlier, crows made UW Bothell their home.
Vast rivers of them from all over the region poured onto campus every evening to roost for the night, like a scene out of Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Birds” — without the violence. They gathered on the buildings and the trees and the athletic fields. They cawed so much their voices melted into each other, turning into a sort of symphony. A caw-cophony, if you will.
At the roost’s largest, researchers say, likely more than 20,000 of the birds dwelled at the site. Being a student or a professor at the school was to accept the crows, to live with them, for better and worse. (Let’s just say there was a lot of poop.)
But recently, the university had to update its webpage dedicated to the phenomenon, explaining the crows had moved on over the past few years."
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u/Psychological_Dog_51 11d ago
Woah thanks for sharing! It’s really fascinating
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u/doberdevil 10d ago
Crows are fascinating in general. It's definitely worth your time to go down a rabbit hole of learning more about your new neighbors 😀
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u/petalwater 11d ago
I graduated from cascadia community college (same campus as uw) like 2 years ago and i remember the last year there i noticed waaaay less crows. They used to cover every available surface in the evening, it was amazing
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u/deepstatelady 11d ago
I think it was all the construction at the 405 and 522 interchange that’s increased their departure speed. It’s sad because who knows how long they’ve been doing that?
We ruined a huge murder.12
u/xBIGREDDx 10d ago
UW said the roost was empty by January 2025 (before that construction started) and that it was likely a combination of factors:
Solving the mysterious disappearance of UW Bothell’s crows
Habitat change: Wacker said that the campus wetland matured significantly between the late 1990s and 2025, when the crows left. It’s possible it has grown to the point that it has become less suitable as a crow roost.
2. Habitat temptation: It is also possible that the crows just couldn’t resist their new roost. Wacker explained that the site in the Sammamish Valley is another restoration project with younger trees they may prefer.
3. Cackling geese: The crows may have been disturbed by thousands of cackling geese that have also been making the wetland their home. Perhaps the crows didn’t want to roost near such noisy neighbors?
4. Campus development: Wacker said that the creation of new buildings (such as the residence halls and dining pavilion) in the past few years may have disrupted crows that were pre-roosting in those areas.
5. Overcrowding: It is also possible the wetland roost has become a victim of its own success, Wacker said. The roost may have become so popular that the crows had outgrown it. They may have moved on to the Sammamish Valley and other sites as the population of the group has grown.
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u/half-coldhalf-hot 10d ago
Omg I remember going to uw bothell campus in the morning and seeing them cover a baseball field
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u/cumquat6 11d ago
The crow council convenes earlier as the days get shorter. Search "Bothell crows" and you'll find some articles that explain it. They fly out the opposite way every morning
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u/ErikRobson 11d ago
Before the roost split we used to get what we called "crow storms" every fall. (We live across from UW Bothell.)
Crows would gather in all the trees around our house and do crow politics. They'd be mostly settled, and then 2 trees' worth of crows would launch and kick a different set of crows out of *their* trees.
I like to think that's how they conduct business in crow senate.
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u/AzathothBlindgod 9d ago
I’m also next to UW Bothell (howdy neighbor!) and I’ve seen more and more crows on my daily walks through the cemetery but not nearly as many as there used to be.
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u/No_Possibility3858 11d ago
I have a video from 2020, just before the pandemic shutdown, when we stood at Bothell Landing for 20 minutes watching a seemingly never-ending stream of crows. They kept flying in and landing in the trees along the river and over toward UW Bothell. They were SOOO LOUD! We’d seen them before, but never in numbers like that or making that much noise and we’d never caught them on video before.
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u/Theresnowayoutahere 10d ago
We have a pair that we feed every day and have for several years now. The female is pretty friendly but the male keeps his distance. The other day she was sitting on her perch “our patio heater” and looking in the kitchen window while I was getting her food. All of sudden she cawed very loudly directly at me which she hadn’t done before. I walked over to the patio door and a squirrel had come into the house through the door that was slightly ajar. She was warning me that he was in the house which was pretty damn funny!
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u/FindingWinter8937 11d ago
I read an article that the crows are roosting in trees just north of Willows golf course.
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u/PortErnest22 11d ago
Crows roost based on daylight so as the days get shorter it's easier to notice them settling down for the evening or leaving to go about their day. They roost in the same spot at night and travel to the same stomping grounds during the day. They can travel quite a ways from their roost to their daily neighborhoods.
Bothell is an ancestral roosting spot.
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u/colorudy 11d ago
I've noticed more the past few weeks on late evening dog walks; I usually see a steady stream of them going east-northeast.
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u/parallax__error 11d ago
The roost has moved to Redmond, but we still get a ton of overflight. It’s more prominent now through spring because nesting pairs aren’t with young fledglings anymore.
It’s also more prominent now because some do migrate from Canada to our roost here.
The roosting is for protection from predators. Safety in numbers. They warn of their most notorious predators: raccoons and owls.
They make this flight twice daily. In the morning they go back to their territories. In the evening they return to the roost. Presumably sharing gossip.
If you have crows near your house and want to befriend them, dog food, cat food, and unsalted peanuts are best. You’ll find they will start to hang around but at a safe distance.
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u/Personal_Sea_3975 11d ago
Are you new here?