Flock of crows takes up residence around Illinois Statehouse

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. -- As if lawmakers and lobbyists were not enough, the state Capitol faces a new kind of infestation -- crows. Thousands of them.

A flock has taken to visiting the Statehouse grounds every day around sunset. They caw and flap noisily at first but then settle into an eerie silence after dark.

It's like they're rehearsing for a sequel to Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds."

The next morning they take off, commuting to the countryside around Springfield to forage for food.

They leave little reminders of their visit, though. The grounds around the Statehouse -- along with the cars and statues -- are splattered with droppings.

"You come out here at 5 o'clock at night, and you better have an umbrella. It's a mess," said Mal Hildebrand, director of the legislative committee that oversees the Capitol building.

Safe from predators

Vern Kleen, a bird expert who recently retired from the state Department of Natural Resources, said crows have gathered near the Capitol for years, but no one remembers them visiting the grounds before.

The flock -- poets may refer to a "murder" of crows, but experts prefer plain old flock -- probably will hang around until March, when breeding season begins, Kleen said.

"This is just a safe spot where predators can't get at them," he said.

Fears of bird droppings causing disease are overblown, Kleen added. The Capitol crows might be a nuisance, but they should not be a danger, he said.

Not everyone considers crows a nuisance. The American Society of Crows and Ravens, for instance, praises their intelligence and personality.

"Some people find them obnoxious. Other people like to have them as pets," Kleen said. "Different people have different opinions of them."

Still, the general opinion around the Capitol is that the birds are a nuisance.

Secretary of State Jesse White's office, which is in charge of Capitol maintenance, has been getting complaints about the crows and their mess, spokesman Randy Nehrt said.

No one is sure what to do about it, though.

"We're trying to determine what has caused such a large number of crows to congregate and what can be done to remove them," Nehrt said.

For years, the Statehouse faced a similar problem with pigeons. Workers put spikes on the building's ledges to keep them from roosting, fired air cannons to startle them and played recordings of screeching birds to frighten them. Nothing worked.

The net effect

Finally, they placed netting around the pigeons' favorite parts of the building, successfully driving them away.

Nehrt said the secretary of state is consulting with the company that came up with the net idea to see if it has any suggestions on getting rid of the crows.

Crow experts, however, don't hold out a lot of hope. Scaring them with noisemakers or fluttering objects tied to their roosting trees can have some effect. Pruning the trees so they have fewer spots to roost also can help.

But getting rid of crows is "a tough sort of thing," Kleen said.

On the other hand, the number of crows seems to fluctuate from a just a few hundred to a few thousand. Other gatherings of crows have been much larger. One, according to a Web site on crows, was estimated at 2 million birds.

So maybe people coming and going at the Statehouse should consider themselves lucky.