MINNEAPOLIS - If you've been in the vicinity of Loring Park in the evening lately, you may have felt like you were on the set of a Hitchcock film.
Crows. Everywhere.
"It is an amazing spectacle," said Sharon Stiteler, a birder, writer and blogger. "They start doing what's called staging and you will see them in various parts of the city, gathering in larger and larger numbers, and then those larger numbers join the others."
This February, they've chosen Loring Park as the location for their winter crow roost.
"Crows will gather by the thousands to sleep together at night during the winter," Stiteler said. "Only in the winter."
They're not mating. Stiteler says that doesn't happen until mid-March. Instead, they're forming a safe haven from predators.
"I just think it is a testament to the city," Stiteler said. "These birds feel so comfortable that there are literally tens of thousands that come here to sleep at night because they feel safe around us."
And Stiteler says we should feel safe around them, too. She says there's nothing to fear, but you still may not want to surprise them.
"The first thing they do is go to the bathroom," she said. "So it is going to be messy for you if you think it is funny to go in and startle them."
Crows can live up to 30 years in the wild, and twice that in captivity.
"They are one of the most intelligent bird species," Stiteler said.
But Stiteler says one thing remains a mystery about the winter congregation.
"We don't know who decides where the roost is," she said.