Time seems to have flown by since November 21, 2010 when I started a blog on crows. This article will be my 1,000.

What better way to celebrate this milestone than to talk about the evolution of Crows of Arroyos. How it has documented my travels in serendipity and my ramblings through nature and history.

So much has changed on my blog since that first day back in 2010. For my current readers you will be surprised at the volume of topics besides historical research this blog has covered. All I can say is something happened when I stumbled into the ruins of Longacres. The trajectory shifted from crows to lost history. But isn’t that how life is?

Why Crows?

I owe a lot of the blogs origin to Ellie. She was a baby crow that we rescued from the neighbors cat. When she flew away it was a bittersweet moment. That sparked my love of the crows in the hood and a blog on crows was born. Here she is in all her baby crow ways.

First blog article – Arroyos Crow World

What a simple little article this was. No photos just a few paragraphs about my black friends. Plus a promise in the last sentence

That’s it today, come back for more Crows of Arroyos!!!

My other goal was to improve my writing skills. Think I have worked pretty hard at that. Not perfect but improved.

Here is a link if you want to see where I started on this blog adventure. Arroyos Crow World – 1st Batgurrl Post

999th article – Bridges of Cedar Mountain

Cedar Mountain Bridges are my newest fascination. I have spent months researching and documenting the five or more bridges in this location. This article is the first of two and you can find it at Current Location Cedar Mtn Bridges. Watch for the second half which covers the first bridges from 100 years ago. It contains some never seen before photos of the bridge built between 1884 and 1916.

Have to say these two articles (the 1st and the latest) are a great demonstration on the wide range and change of subjects Crows of Arroyos has covered over the years.

Top Ten Articles of all Time

Over the years during the holidays I would write an article highlighting the top ten posts. This exercise is eye opening because it is driven by my audience and some internet luck of the draw. Today my Crow discussion is still holding the top of the pile. Check it out!

Crow Top Ten

The most viewed article has been at the top for years. I wonder about why but have learned to just go with the flow of Google searches and what people are interested in.

That number one for a long time is – It’s Molting Time – Crows, Herons & Madrona Trees. It was written on September 25, 2011 and has had 5,674 views. Only my home page exceeds this in that number of people touching Crows of Arroyos.

Here is the link if you want to push the count up on my all time most viewed post. Link – It’s Molting Time

Why this article? Over the years I have played with Google and Bing Search. Currently, Google has it buried down around 40th but one of the posts images is the 3rd image shown. It has slipped over the years due to their advertising. However, Bing has me at the top. Another draw to this article is I talk about Madrona trees molting which is a West Coast species.

The other top 10 crow articles are:

• #2 is Crow Pellet – 3,510 views since 2012 – This article talks about how crows regurgitate pellets. Link to Crow throw-up!
• #4 is Crow Idioms – Eat Crow and As the Crow Flies – 2,895 views since 2016 – I wrote this article when in my business life I had to call up someone and eat crow. Link to Crow Idioms Fun
• #5 is The Caramel Crows of Lincoln Park – 1,977 views since 2020. Not all crows are black. This article talks about Leucism in crows. A condition in which there is partial loss of pigmentation in an animal. Link to see caramel crows
• #7 is Crows-Ravens and Halloween – 1,579 views since 2011. Yup our black beauties are associated with the macabre and seen as evil birds. Link to covids as a symbol of Halloween
• #10 is Mega Renton Crow Roost – 1,031 views since 2013. Right outside my old office every fall the crows would show up by the thousands. This was one of many articles I wrote about this crow phenomenon. Link to the huge murder in Renton

History Top Ten

You will be surprised but only my index article on Locating Lost Old Coal Mines of King County is on the top ten history list.

None of my current articles around Cedar Mountain, New Black Diamond Coal Mine, Veazie and searching for coal mines, camps and ghost towns made the list. The closest was Jones Brothers Coal Mine – Beginning of Indian Mine at 17th with 864 views.

The list is mostly my Longacres work:

• #3 is Ruins of Longacres Racetrack – The Foundations – 2,901 views since 2016 – This was the first post in my series on what was left of the old horse racing track called Longacres. I had split my research into three parts; the foundations, the green wall and the track. Link to this article on our local ruins
• #6 is Locating Lost Old Coal Mines of King County – 1,856 views since 2020 – Directory style article on all my posts on this subject. Still a work in progress. Locating Lost Old Coal Mines of King County
• #8 is Longacres Racetrack – Vintage Aerials – 1,194 views since 2016. Longacres Racetrack may be gone but she lives on in people’s hearts. So many had reached out to me. One of the most gracious was Bill Taylor (now departed from this world) who sent me a treasure trove of photos. This is the link to them
• #9 is Ruins of Longacres Racetrack – The Track – 1,068 views since 2016. This was the third in my first series on the ruins of Longacres that focused on what was left of the track. I end the article with a video combining old photos with current video. Kind of corny but not bad for an amateur with low grade software. Link to the Longacres Track Ruins

Statistics gone Crazy

In October of 2011 about a year into this blogging thing I ran into Paparazzi parked by Amanda Knox’s mother’s home after Amanda’s return from Italy. I gave them hell about being stalkers and they in turn called me a crow stalker.

This article got listed in an Amanda blog and from there it had so many views it became my number one post. Today it is still a winner at the 14th place with 938 views. If you want to read my odd statistics crazy anomaly go to it HERE!

Series & their Directories

I have done several adventures, meanderings and historical research projects. I found it best to organize them for the reader with an article/post that lists and links all the pieces in one place. Here are the most notable.

Green River Trail Quest – In 2015 I walked the Green River Trail south of Seattle. This is a 19 mile long paved trail mostly used by bicyclist. I would park at one spot and walk a few miles documenting what I found. Then walk back to my car. Here is the link if you want to follow along on My Quest

My Duwamish Adventure – I had so much fun walking south along the Green River Trail I decided to see what was northward. I did this in late 2015 into early 2016. This trail had a lot more industrialization versus the rural nature of the Green River Trail.

It too was basically paved but I did go off trail at times to stay close to the river. The final article also has one of my amateurish movie productions. It is called “Our only River – The Duwamish”. Here is the link to get an idea of what this trail looked like 7 years ago – The Adventure

Georgetown Steam Plant – Oh this was a photographers delight wrapped in a historical context. Check out all the dials, old technology and some spooky moments that I documented on a whim one day when I went on a tour of the plant. This first link will lead you to the others – The Steam Plant of 1906

To recap; my blog has at this point around 425 articles on Crows, 400 on Birds, Flowers, & Nature. The rest of the 1,000 are on history and other random topics that I took a shine to. Kind of like a crow who loves sparkly things. I pick them up and want to share them.

Hope you go look at some of my older articles. Lot to see and learn in this world. May we never stop learning cause as I say on my lost coal mines articles.

Remember Times are a changing.  Blink and all will be changed. Literally, a road, a town or a railroad can disappear into the fog.

Batgurrl