crow rendezvous

Running errands just before dusk. Near the co-op are 100 to 125 crows silently spiraling through the sky, descending onto the roof of the ramshackle apartments across the street and roosting in the huge boulevard maples down the block. Even from street level I can see that the buds on the maples are starting to swell and turn red. The days are getting noticeably longer--it's still light at 6 p.m.--and temperatures have been in the 20s or 30s for the past week.