Listener Lauren Linscheid of Seattle sees crows flying every day toward Lake City Way. “I want to know where they’re going and why,” Lauren told KUOW’s Local Wonder team. We sent reporter Ashley Ahearn to investigate. That crow you see hopping around your neighborhood, Lauren? It’s probably the same crow, every day. Crows can live for more than 20 years – they mate for life and they stake out territory where they spend their days foraging and raising their young. But every night, from miles around, they gather to roost. And tonight, we’re going to follow them. First stop, Professor John Marzluff’s office at the University of Washington. Marzluff has studied Seattle’s crows for almost 20 years. His walls are plastered with corvid memorabilia.

We get in Marzluff’s Volkswagen sedan, which he calls “The Polluter,” even though he runs it on biodiesel. Marzluff is taking me along on his nightly commute, which, it turns out, follows the same route of thousands of Seattle’s crows as they fly to their roosting spot. Marzluff drives with one eye on the sky and one on the road. He’s been pulled over for erratic driving before, but he says cops let him off with a warning when he explains that he’s looking for birds. We drive toward the Calvary Cemetery on 35th Avenue Northeast, a regular crow haunt. “It’s kind of a cool site,” Marzluff says of the Roman Catholic cemetery. “We’ll see if they’re there or not.” He calls the cemetery a “staging area.” If you’ve seen murders of crows in your neighborhood, that’s probably what it is: Crows from all around gathering in smaller groups before flying to their nightly roost. They forage for food, socialize and welcome newcomers – like the Canadian crows that are currently coming down for the winter.

The crows, perhaps sensing a cliché, aren’t at the cemetery tonight. Marzluff says that may be intentional. Crows have learned that if they gather regularly at the same staging areas, predators like owls and hawks will catch on. We continue our drive north on 35th Avenue. We’re seeing a few crows here and there, but no big groups yet. We drive by the Seattle Audubon Society. No crows. They’re avian non grata there, Marzluff says. “They’re not the favorite bird of the Audubon Society. They are associated with what some perceive as more degraded lands, but really it’s just richer, more variable landscape that they really like.” Seattle is a perfect crow habitat because of its grassy lawns and gardens, big trees, parks and homes, not to mention restaurants and dumpsters.

As the human population has grown here, crows have thrived; there are 30 to 40 times more crows in the city than there were in the 1960s. We see more crows as we head north, passing Seattle city limits. We pull off Bothell Way at the Kenmore Park & Ride. The trees around us are loaded with crows. The 309 bus pulls up behind us. The evening rush-hour commute is in full swing. Marzluff says city crows have adapted to the noise. “They’ll communicate at a higher pitch, and they’ll also be louder,” he says. “I’m sure the crows have raised their voices in the city, relative to the country, just to be heard over the din of our everyday life.”

Passengers get off the bus and walk by, most of them engrossed in their smartphones, ear buds in. But a few look at the sky. “I ride the bus most days, and I always look at people in the bus and see if they are paying attention to these thousands of crows that are gathering around now,” Marzluff says, looking out the car window. “Just look at these people,” he says. “There’s a guy looking up, another person looking up, so two out of the five are looking and saying, ‘What the heck is going on here?’” The park & ride is clearly a well-loved crow staging area. There are hundreds of crows here. But they haven’t reached their destination yet. We get back on the road, and a few minutes later, Marzluff turns left onto the University of Washington Bothell campus. The sky is deep gray, and we can see black flecks in the distance.