Tens of thousands of crows winter here in Minneapolis every year. With the warm weather earlier in the month and then the recent cold snap and snow fall the huge evening roosts are finally coming together as hundreds gather up in the various bunches and work out how the whole thing will be organized and it is organized.

Crows from all over who will fight each other over breeding territories in the summer, work out a massive winter gathering for nighttime roosts, and they do it inside our city limits.

I was just sitting around this evening and idling just before dusk as one of the local groups assembled in my neighborhood on the way to the larger gathering. This just started in the past week or two and they are still not all in agreement. The racket is immense but if you watch closely the cawing goes around in a rough sort of pattern, not there aren't several "conversations" more likely arguments going on at the same time. There are chases and obvious arguments and even small breakaway groups that if not followed are chased down and headed back to the gathering. They eventually get it all worked out somehow.

Last evening I stepped out of my front door to find hundreds of crows in just the one tree in front of my house and similar numbers in other trees around. When I startled them, most of them took off and the whole sky was black, but a small number stayed behind and kept an eye on me. Scouts I guess or maybe a rear guard.

The whole process reverses itself in the spring as the massive roost breaks up in bits and pieces departing for their breeding territories with last years young very often accompanying their parents and helping to raise the next brood. In the past couple of years that has also been happening in my neighborhood with components of the massive winter roosts sometimes over-nighting by the hundreds in trees around some of the nearby houses.

Nothing crows do in groups is very quiet and some of those houses must have their windows rattling until the birds finally settle down for the night.

They are amazing birds. They say "dumb animals", but crows don't fit that description very well.