Have You Seen the 3 Giant Crows in Upstate New York

If you're travelling south on Interstate 81 you may have seen three huge crows along the side of the road. The metal birds are just after the Alexandria Bay exit and have been drawing attention for years.

Living in Canada and travelling a lot to the U.S. when I was younger, I noticed these birds for years and wondered who was responsible and why they were there.

Man Behind the Birds

Sculptor Bill Salisbury is the man behind the birds and explains where the idea came from.

"It was a time when on the planet Earth, Y2k was in our future. Doom Doom! All said that in our future only darkness loomed. Well lots of humans if not most were left with no certain future, if our trusted computers which ran our world and the MONEY went amuck! So what strange things would occur, what were the heralds’ of this great doom to be I asked? Suddenly buying bird food became an obsession, when most folks were stocking up on peaches, spam, beer, gas and digging holes. I was at Agway checking out the sunflowers and bird seed. Well 1999 rolled around and these huge crows began to appear and I was like Noah on a mission."

If you're driving by the I-81 birds, don't stop for pictures. Cops have been handing out tickets to tourists for years for stopping to look at the bird statues.

The crows aren't only famous in Upstate New York.

Hollywood actor Viggo Mortensen was given a crow, named The Rascal, during the Snow Town Film Festival several years ago.