29 December 2025

Dusk was coming on, the wind light and unpredictable. Three female detectives huddled together on frozen ground, considering the problem. How to count thousands upon thousands of crafty crows in a darkening sky. It was not a job for the faint of heart. “Hey girl! I heard you liked murders.”

We had studied the murders for weeks, found out where the perpetrators staged and where they slept. We had to count crows and there was only one night that mattered, Saturday 27 December during Pittsburgh’s 2025 Christmas Bird Count. Carol Steytler, Charity Kheshgi and I prepared for the big event.

We found evidence. Crows slept above this Forbes Avenue sidewalk on 22 December.

But the problem was — and is — that crows change what they do based on weather and human disturbance. They started in trees at the Univ of Pittsburgh (evidence!) but moved to rooftops from Hillman Library to Barco Law Building, Posvar Hall and Bouquet Gardens.

We couldn’t count them on roofs, so we focused on counting streams of crows flying in from their staging areas. I drew a map but by 22 December it was evident that the streams changed every night and that no matter where we stood some huge number of crows came in from directions we could not see. Example below: No crows streamed by the OC Lot on 22 December though 20,000 flew by the night before. Forget the map.

On Christmas evening I went to the largest elevated airspace with a view, Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Hall steps, and counted about 20,000 crows directly overhead.

On Count Day it was a lot harder. Carol Steytler checked the staging areas and joined me at Soldiers & Sailors where the crows messed with my plan. Only 6,100 streamed by. Meanwhile 5,000 staged at Schenley Park and flew in behind the buildings. Charity Kheshgi counted another 5,000 from Schenley Plaza and by the time I joined her behind Posvar Hall, we realized there were lots of crows at Bouquet Gardens as well. Crows were swirling in the air and splatting poot on the sidewalks. One of them pooted into my open car window. Ugh! We risked getting ugly-dirty if we walked around.

Carol Steytler visited the scene at 10:00pm and avoided getting hit.

How many crows on 27 December 2025? 18,600.

Not so elementary, my dear Watson.

p.s. I carved out 100 for fish crows, leaving 18,500 American crows, since we heard fish crows but could not accurately identify them in the dark.

And what about the Bouquet Garden crows? I counted evidence the next day.