I have visited the crow roost at Burnaby’s Still Creek Drive on many occasions. Each time I am astounded by the number of crows and the show they put on. With 10-15,000 crows descending on a few hectares of trees just off Highway 1, this roost has got to be one of the most accessible wildlife spectacles in Metro Vancouver.
As part of the annual fund raiser of the Nature Trust of British Columbia, I agreed to take a few people on a special tour of the roost. We arrived at about 3:30 to catch a glimpse of the vanguard of crows. For about an hour the numbers swelled until soon after sunset a tsunami of crows arrived. The noise was deafening. The crows were everywhere – in the sky, on the ground, on rooftops and in trees. The noise went on for quite some time. Workers from nearby buildings walked along the road as if nothing was happening or they had seen it all before. We were too walked beneath the trees where the crows were perched only a few meters away. A few hundred stood on a grassy verge outside McDonald’s restaurant. Others perched in ornamental trees under the glare of overhead lights. They seemed uncocnerned that cars whizzed by and people strolled along the sidewalks.
It is not very often that a wildlife spectacle of this magnitude occurs in the city. So add a trip to the crow roost to your bucket list of wildlife spectacles to see in British Columbia. The best viewing times are from now until about February.
Stories from Nature 