Thousands of crows have come to roost in Arlington again this fall, the end of their breeding season.
When the sun starts to set, the crows show up, looking like a scene from the classic Alfred Hitchcock movie “The Birds.”
“I usually see them in the morning,” resident Eric Burnett said. “It’s kind of freaky. They usually line up on the side of the building and they just make a lot of noise.”
The owner of birding store One Good Tern suggested the crows chose Arlington because they like the views from the tall trees and when they're searching for scraps to eat there's plenty to find.
With the murder of crows comes a lot of excrement.
“Down here it’s a mess,” resident Ruth Drucker said. “And even to walk, sometimes when you see everything. it’s like, oh God.”
“It’s difficult to make a run for it because you don’t know if you’re going to get hit,” resident Rebecca Tittle said. “That’s a lot of birds.”
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“I tend to usually, even if it’s not cold, you’ll see me walking around here with my hood on just in case,” resident St. Clair Williams. “You hope for the best.”
But not everyone is upset.
“It’s natural; it’s supposed to be like that,” said one resident who didn’t want to share her name. “You can’t train a bird not to go where it wants.”
