at that time of night, the driveways that could give us access were all gated and locked.
As I watched the crows arriving, we continued around the block to try and find a way in. Finally I saw an open driveway, and as we pulled in, I saw the crows in the middle of a giant parking lot surrounded by twos-tory buildings.
We drove through the lot—excitement building with each parking aisle we passed and as the numbers of crows grew and grew—until we came to the center of the chaos. I yelled to my husband to stop the car, but before the car fully stopped, I had already jumped out.
Thousands of crows covered every surface—trees, buildings, streetlights, curbs—even the parking lot’s tarmac was covered in crows. They perched in the branches of scrawny trees, silhouetted against the orange horizon and setting sun. They sauntered along the railroad tracks that divided the parking lot in half. More and more flew in from different directions. As I was trying to fathom the number of crows, I looked up, and my jaw dropped. A huge flock of starlings, a hundred feet across, had snuck up behind me and now flew directly overhead. The tight mass of small starlings flew higher, creating a cloud over the looser group of larger crows. The quickly fading deep blue of the sky filled with thousands of moving shadows—the starlings going one way and the crows going every way. The combined spectacle of starlings and crows was like the grand finale of a fireworks show.
I stood in awe watching the crows and starlings in constant movement. The murmurations of starlings flew out of sight, only to return larger in size, one moment a long, sinuous shape, the next a tight ball of black. Then the flock broke apart and there were two groups of starlings, then three. While the starlings were silent shadows, the crows’ caws echoed a thousand times over, creating a ruckus to rival Bothell’s massive roost.
Cars kept driving by me, and then I finally noticed small shuttle vans before realizing I was standing in the overflow parking lot for the nearby IKEA store. A security truck pulled up just across the train tracks from me, and the guard simply yelled out that the birds do this every night. Before I could ask any questions, he was gone, driving slowly through the rabble of crows.
SPRING PRELUDE
. . . greenness grew over those brown beds, which, freshening daily, suggested the thought that Hope traversed them at night, and left each morning brighter traces of her steps.
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