Thousands of Crows Descend on Kansas City

by Mary Jo Draper

BOB EDWARDS, Host: The common crow used to be content with its roost in rural America, but for the past two decades the birds have been showing up in urban areas across the country, and crows have taken over a popular shopping center in a residential area of Kansas City. Mary Jo Draper of member station KCUR in Kansas City reports crows have been gathering there every night since late fall.

MARY JO DRAPER, Reporter: Bernie Niersbaumer thought he was moving into a nice, quiet apartment in The Plaza, an area of midtown Kansas City filled with apartments, condos and up-scale shops. But a few months ago hundreds of crows started congregating in the trees right outside of Niersbaumer's window. He says the worst time is about six in the morning.
[sound of crows cawing]

BERNIE NIERSBAUMER, Kansas City Resident: One of them starts, he wakes up 10 of them, those 10 wake up the rest of the group, and they go mad, moving about, flying. Their wings- They're pretty large birds. Their wings, you know, they make quite a bit of noise with just their wings on top of the cawing. And it's impossible to sleep through it.

MARY JO DRAPER: As residents of Niersbaumer's building discovered, the crows go off during the day and come back at sunset. As the sun begins to go down, small groups of crows circle over The Plaza neighborhood. They swoop down and land in places like the building's parking lot, which is bordered by three-story-high trees. By the time it gets dark the trees are so full of crows they look like they've sprung into full leaf in the middle of winter. Wildlife biologist Joe Werner, who works for Kansas City Power and Light, says he first noticed the crows in the late '60s when about 3,000 gathered in a Kansas City suburb.

JOE WERNER, Wildlife Biologist, Kansas City Power and Light: There may be a crow roost with literally thousands of crows in it, coming all in from all parts of the city to roost in one particular area in one particular evening. And usually they'll come back to the same place unless they get chased off.

MARY JO DRAPER: Werner says the crows start to flock together in the fall and the groups become larger and larger until mid-winter. He says the crows only get together in big groups at night. During the day they fly off to look for grain and earthworms, dead animals and song-bird eggs that they eat.

JOE WERNER: They'll all have their special areas that they disperse out to, and they may go several miles within the city and, obviously, outside of the city, too, to find their food and forage for the day.

MARY JO DRAPER: University-of-California-at-Davis researcher Paul Gorenzal says crows are smart, they're the most intelligent birds. He thinks they've been smart enough to figure out they're safer in the city.

PAUL GORENZAL, Researcher, University of California at Davis: Crows that roost out in the country are subject to predation, and we think that the primary predator of a crow at a roost would be the great horned owl. Now when they shift to roosting in urban areas there are no great horned owls in our urban areas. Owls are around the edges of cities, but they're not an urban bird at all.

MARY JO DRAPER: Gorenzal says crows favor well-lit areas of the city. They like shopping centers and other bright, open places where they can see predators coming. Because they form large roosts in colder months, Gorenzal says the birds may also be looking for warmth.

PAUL GORENZAL: It's warmer in the cities, so they don't have to spend as much- expend as much energy to keep warm at night as they might have to out in a country roost.

MARY JO DRAPER: Cities from Boston to Buffalo to Sacramento have all reported problems with urban crow roosts. In Northern California, the Yuba City crow population is estimated at a million birds. The people there tried to try poison a few years ago, but animal rights protesters stuck up for the crows. Now, with Gorenzal's help, Yuba city residents have found an acceptable solution. They play a tape recording of a crow in distress-
[sound of crow cawing loudly and raucously]

MARY JO DRAPER: After three nights of listening to that, the crows move on, not out of Yuba City, which they think of as home, but at least to another part of town. In midtown Kansas City residents haven't resorted to playing a tape recording of a crow in distress. They have tried clapping, shouting - even throwing things at the crows to scare them off. As the weather gets warmer the crows will probably move on, on their own. Midtown residents hope that next year they'll find a new neighborhood for their winter roost. For National Public Radio, I'm Mary Jo Draper in Kansas City. [sound of crows cawing]