♪♪
[NARRATOR] Love them or hate them,
crows are a part of our urban landscape in Seattle.
[JOHN MARZLUFF] It's kind of hard to be in a place
where crows are and not really notice them.
[KELLY BRENNER] I love watching crows because they're everywhere.
They're so dynamic and they're so full of mystery.
(car motor running)
[JOHN MARZLUFF] They're loud. They're big.
They're active.
[NARRATOR] They spend much of their days foraging for food.
[JOHN MARZLUFF] Crows are pretty good at that.
They'll eat just about anything.
[KELLY BRENNER] For example,
if you notice a lot of crows around a certain neighborhood,
it might be garbage day, because they recognize
that certain day of the week is garbage day.
[NARRATOR] Unlike some animals that live in our midst,
crows are keenly aware of us,
and they keep a close eye on what we're up to.
John Marzluff has made a career of studying crows
and their relationship to people.
[JOHN MARZLUFF] It's been very interesting to see not only how aware
they are,
but how much attention they pay to specific people.
They learn
particular individuals are reliable sources of food.
Matt Baume is one of those reliable sources of food.
And this group of crows
eagerly awaits his appearance each day.
But today, they are more wary than usual.
Professor Marzluff says that was probably because of me
and my camera.
[JOHN MARZLUFF] The camera looks like a very intense predator;
big eye
that's staring right at them and they don't like that.
[NARRATOR] Once they found enough food,
the rest of their day is spent protecting territory.
Older crows will establish turf,
usually around a half city block.
[JOHN MARZLUFF] They will know everything that goes on in that territory:
where the food is, where the dangers are...
[NARRATOR] Or bonding and establishing relationships
with other crows.
[JOHN MARZLUFF] They interact with other crows and learn from them.
This ability to remember and learn things
allows them to really be
some of the smartest birds we have in the city.
(crows cawing)
[NARRATOR] As the sun dips toward the horizon
and thousands of Seattleites flock to the freeways
and busses to head home from work,
(crows cawing)
the crows start thinking about their commute to.
♪♪
[JOHN MARZLUFF] Birds from Edmonds,
Snohomish, Seattle all congregate in the evening.
[NARRATOR] The final destination
for many local
crows is the campus
of the University of Washington, Bothell.
Tens of thousands of crows gather
here to roost in the nearby wetlands.
It starts with a trickle.
(crows cawing)
Then larger groups begin to arrive.
By dusk,
there's a seemingly endless stream.
♪♪
(crows cawing)
[KELLY BRENNER] The numbers that they have and the spectacle
of these crows against the evening sky is just spectacular.
[JOHN MARZLUFF] You'll see basically a tree absolutely full of crows.
There's lots of information being exchanged
there of which we know very little.
♪♪
[KELLY BRENNER] It was just
one of the most spectacular
experiences I've had in nature
and just with the most common bird, the crow.
[JOHN MARZLUFF] Pretty striking to see.
♪♪
[JOHN MARZLUFF] People should care about crows
because they might challenge us,
but they're also a good signal,
their signal of how we've changed the environment.
They've been expanding their range.
They were probably more of a woodland open-forest species.
But as we increase the food and garbage
that we leave around that they can utilize,
we made the habitat suitable for them
and allow their populations to spread and grow.
[NARRATOR] Crows are a part of our world
and we are perhaps an even bigger part of theirs.
As we've altered the natural landscape,
they've taken advantage of those changes.
The massive numbers of crows we see around us today
are just another reminder of the scale of the impact
we are having on our environment.
So perhaps if we pay attention,
we could also learn a thing or two
from our noisy neighbors.
[JOHN MARZLUFF] They are surviving this sixth mass extinction
that's occurring.
So they tell us something about how to survive in this
very rapidly changing world.
♪♪