Reader report: Another bird-caused West Seattle power outage

From Jon:

Power was out in the Seaview Addition from roughly 6 pm – 7:30 pm, on July 5th. A crow hit a transformer, and was killed. Immediately, a couple dozen crows set up in the heavily wooded lot across the alley, and made a raucus cawing dirge. There were several crows still cawing when City Light showed up an hour later. They indicated they were familiar with this crow behavior. They soon had the power restored, with a bird shield over the transformer. Only a few homes were affected by the outage.

This is the third outage of this type in the past week or so.

7 Replies to "Reader report: Another bird-caused West Seattle power outage"

  • Reginald Boram July 6, 2014 (2:34 am)

    KING 5 News ran a story on this very subject (crows mourning their dead) yesterday.

    http://www.king5.com/news/cities/seattle/Crows-funeral-UW-research-265287181.html

  • Linda Lamp July 6, 2014 (9:31 am)

    How was the Crow managed? A similar thing happened in Alaska and there was concern for the Crow and the family. They feel the pain just as we would.

  • Ms Pam July 6, 2014 (11:55 pm)

    Crows are amazing birds! They mourn their fellow crows deaths. They are incredibly smart! And will remember YOU if you are mean to them. I feed them every day (they love peanuts & left over bread!). They are beautiful & charming birds. Nature has such a problem living with Man. We keep taking away more & more places for them to be. Think about them sometime. What can you do to make their lives better? A grouping of crows is called “A Murder of Crows!”. They are really fascinating!!!

  • Brian July 7, 2014 (7:55 am)

    Dear Ms Pam,

    Please stop feeding the crows.

    Sincerely,

    Everyone Else In The City

  • Born on Alki July 7, 2014 (10:31 am)

    Ditto what Brian said. Our neighbors did this for years. Plugged gutters with peanut shells caused headaches for every house in the hood, not to mention problems for a little girl with severe peanut allergies. Now nothing can be left outside without these bandits helping themselves. They are masters at opening garbage cans. The constant crow conventions at 6 am are almost as annoying as the train horns too. Please do not feed these creatures. They do just fine on their own.

  • newnative July 7, 2014 (9:51 pm)

    They are smart and fascinating but they also blame and attack without obvious provocation. I have been followed for a mile by a single crow on a treeless street downtown, I have been divebombed in my own neighborhood.

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