Caw, Caw!
A murder of crows that circle each night outside Angell Hall and around the Diag - with their cackling calls and noisy flapping of wings - has been plaguing students.
And then there's the droppings.
The women who live in nearby Betsy Barbour residence hall said they're especially affected by the crows' habits.
"I think someone should get a BB-gun," said Betsy Barbour resident and LSA first-year student Melita Alston. "I've been pooped on before - they are awful," she said.
Other Barbour residents said even a love for animals doesn't stifle their scorn for the "Betsy Birds."
"Normally I'm all good about birds and everything, but I think they're a menace," said LSA sophomore Rachel Klamo.
LSA sophomore Marie Dewitt, who also lives in Barbour, said the crows have disrupted her sleeping schedule.
"I've been woken up in the morning by them because they are really loud," Dewitt said about the crows that stay until early morning.
Other students on campus said they are alarmed about the crows as well.
Amanda Goodman, a Rackham first-year student, said she felt the crows were "following her," because of their sheer numbers and ominous presence.
The roost outside Angell Hall can be crowded with, "up to 10,000 crows," said Rackham student Cynthia Sims Parr, an expert on the Ann Arbor birds. Parr recently completed her dissertation on the local crows.
"A lot of these birds are migrants, but local birds participate too," Parr said. "They are more social than a lot of birds, and very smart."
George Kulesza, a researcher at the University's Museum of Zoology, said a number of factors draw the crows to campus, including protection from predators - mainly owls. The lighting and tall trees outside of Angell Hall also make it an ideal spot for crows to land, Kulesza said.
But Kulesza said the crows' stay in Ann Arbor is only temporary and the birds will likely leave within a few days.
"They are winter roosts only," Kulesza said.
The campus crows, or Corvus brachyrhynchos, spend their evenings on campus from November to about mid-March. They are diurnal and omnivorous, which means they will eat anything and spend their days scavenging for food, Kulesza said.
The birds even have their own daily schedule, according to Janet Henshaw, coordinator of museum collections at the Museum of Zoology.
Before dusk, the crows first gather in small groups before coming together in the cemetery behind Observatory Street. From there, when nightfall comes, they descend on central campus.
Bird experts, or ornithologists, agreed that as the season changes, most of the crows will find new homes.
"Yes, it's a problem, the flock is going to break up soon though," said University pest control specialist Dale Hodgson.
But Hodgson said even though the crows will soon leave for the year, they will be back next November. He said the University has toyed with the notion of using scare tactics to deter the birds' future campus appearances.
Hodgson said dispersing the birds when they first start to roost is very important. Officials have talked about using big balloons shaped like owls or owls' eyes to make the crows "feel nervous."
Hodgson said that while crow droppings are certainly a nuisance, they are not likely to cause serious health problems.
"For there to be a large problem as far as feces goes there would have to be much more of it," Hodgson said.
Parr said that when the crows leave campus, they will head for a variety of destinations.
"Some fly back north, some spend their nights in their territory where their own nests are," Parr said, adding that other small groups of unmated birds called 'gangs' will continue to roam around locally.
JOSH BIGGS/Daily
A flock of crows perch on trees near North University Avenue last night. The crows are a campus phenomenon that many students and experts say they find annoying.