Seeing/Knowing, Crows
Opportunity School Students arrive at Gund Gallery, Kenyon College to see the exhibit Seeing/Knowing
Thousands of crows converge from as far away as Canada to spend the cold months in Coshocton. It is an unpopular and persistent phenomenon about which little is known excepting that crows like rivers, small towns surrounded by fields, and light to see their night enemies by.
Monday, November 14–after a week of researching crows, observing crows and measuring crow roosting trees (and an afternoon meal at Wendy’s), twelve Coshocton Opportunity School students working with the Pomerene Center for the Arts, visited Kenyon’s new Gund Gallery’s inaugural exhibition Seeing/Knowing .
Seeing/Knowing explores the experience of information in contemporary art. The students are exploring the idea of visually presenting their crow information. Great fit!
The students will present their work on December 16, 2011.
Building upon the research done with the Opportunity School students, the Pomerene plans to assemble a team of community ‘researchers’ by mid-January to deepen our understanding of Coshocton’s winter crows. The work will be guided by the following questions.
In crow night roosting areas
- What is the light source?
- What is quality, intensity and spectrum of ambient light ?
How does weather (temperature, clear/cloudy/rainy, wind direction) affect crow night gathering and roosting habits?
- Initial observations: weather effects the emissions from the Rockten Paper Mill which in turn effects the quality of light and intensity in the vicinity surrounding the mill, an area of crow choice.
- In 2010 at the height of the crow night roosting problem on the court square there was a sudden downturn in temperature coinciding with the first planned detonation of pyrotechnics. The crows did not gather at the court square.
How many crows fit on the head of a pin? More practically, how many trees and of what size are needed for the night roost? Are our crows roosting in one large roost or multiple roosts?
Can roosting habits be encouraged in selected sites by creating ideal lighting conditions?
Can roosting habits be discouraged by altering tree canopies
- through significant (30%) pruning?
- changing the spectrum of the light?
crows!