Have you heard of this odd phenomenon that takes place in Charlottetown during the cold months of the year. As Fall began, I started noticing that every day, around the same time, there were huge numbers of crows flying overhead and they were all headed the same direction. It became so that I would take the boys for their walk about the same time each day, just so I could watch the crows fly and wondered where they were all headed. Since Ev was headed for work around the same time, I tried to encourage him to follow them, but his mind was elsewhere on his journey into town and he'd forget. It seemed to start as the sun was making its daily descent and would last for several hours until the sky went dark. No matter what the weather, those birds were determined. Some days the wind would be on their side and they appeared to float threw the sky, while others, the wind would violently throw them about.
Now I don't know if you have one of these members in your family, but I do and his name is DAD! For numerous years, every time we would be sitting around discussing some trivial event, or if he wanted to know odd morsel of information that none of us knew the answer his reply was, "Google it!" So smart for someone who refused to attempt to even try surfing the web. (Glad to report that we have him trained up now. Who ever said you can't teach an OLD dog new tricks?) Heeding my father's wise words, I googled the odd behaviour of the crows and discovered that the crows were flying from all over the island to roost at Victoria Park which is located in downtown Charlottetown. Their odd ritual starts in the Fall season and continues until Spring time when they apparently find something better to do but never to be deterred, they faithfully return when Fall is in the air.
You have to wonder, are they just like us? Do they head out for a day of work and return home at night to their loved ones to discuss the events of their day? Do they sit on the same perch each night? Do they roost with the same crows day-in, day-out, or do they hang out with a different crowd every night? Did I mention that it is estmated there are some 10,000 crows migrating downtown each evening and that they are not isolated to the park? I do know that some citizens of Charlottetown are none too impressed. I'm sure I wouldn't be either if my car was parked underneath their perch for the evening.
Out of curiousity we drove to the park one freezing cold winter evening and watched the show. It was an unimagineable scene and I wish I had taken better pictures and a video clip but it was freezing cold (says me who lived in the Arctic for over 3 years) and difficult to take pictures in the ever changing twilight. Of course the other thing the video would have captured was the incredible noise. It's hard to imagine how loud 10,000 crows chattering sounds like, but, I dare say, it is a CAW-CAW-phony of disproportionate measure - it is almost deafening. Everytime my flash on my camera went off, it disrupted them and would set off an even louder disgruntled discussion amongst them.
I know I'm not doing this scene justice and describing it is making me regret not capturing the scene in a more memorable fashion. It's also making me want to revisit the scene...hmmmm....wonder what the hubby has planned for the evening? Perhaps he'll read my blog and I won't even have to ask.
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