June 24, 2026: A fascinating new story exploring whether humans and wild crows can actually form friendships begins with intimate relationships between people and individual neighborhood crows. Through personal stories and insights from leading researchers, the article by Elizabeth Preston explores the remarkable intelligence of crows, their ability to recognize individual people, remember faces for years, learn complicated tasks, and maintain sophisticated social and family relationships.

The story then widens its perspective dramatically, traveling to Lawrence, Massachusetts, and its remarkable Winter Crow Roost. The author joins photographer and naturalist Craig Gibson shortly before sunset on a cold December afternoon, watching American and Fish Crows gather before moving toward their nighttime roost along the Merrimack River. Described as one of New England’s largest winter crow roosts, Lawrence may host as many as 15,000 crows on winter evenings, creating spectacular “rivers of birds” streaming overhead.

The Lawrence roost provides a wonderful closing perspective for the story. Rather than knowing individual crows, Gibson has spent nearly 500 nights observing them collectively—“wild and anonymous.” As thousands gather, communicate, and interact with one another, the author realizes that their remarkable nightly performance is ultimately not for us at all. The crows have extraordinarily rich lives of their own, leaving us fortunate simply to watch, appreciate, and wonder.

Link to Audubon Magazine article: https://www.audubon.org/magazine/are-crows-really-our-friends