"The Crow Paradox, from NPR (Attn: Cacique Caribe)" Topic

Girlfriend just sent me this link to a fascinating summary of a study that was done, presented in an entertaining fashion.

link

While I realize one study does not an ironclad truth make, the implications are intriguing (and perhaps a little unsettling).

More importantly, though- this has definite potential to apply to horror, fantasy, sci-fi, perhaps even alternate historical gaming- imagine a unit of troops who've ticked off the local crow population, trying to move into or maintain ambush positions, while the crows relentlessly harass them, for example, essentially raising the alarm…

- Monk

That's brilliant – thanks Monk.

We live in the country and have a family of crows who essentially live with us. You can see what intelligent creatures they are.

One lost a leg and remained alive and well and hopping around for a year before he unfortunately fell foul of the local farmer's cull.

Like your ideas and am reminded of Resident Evil: Extinction.

Cheers
Mark

I've followed some of the other NR links – goldmine! I've signed up for the podcasts. Thanks once again Monk!!!

Mark

'Bird-brained' is not a really good insult – It merely means as we zoologists have known for years that the being so described has some hard-wired behaviours, but a potential for some very impressive specialised tasks as well.

Magpies are our local crows – Imported form Australia and England, originally, and while I am not sure about them holding grudges or memories they becoem very agreessive and territorial during the nesting season, often attacking people repeatedly.

A parliament of crows would make for interesting guards of an area – wider ranging than geese, and superbly useful for showing covert positions.

I had trouble with the link, but did hear this on the radio.
Pretty amazing stuff the have on NPR.

If anyone else has trouble with the link, go to NPR.org

I'll do you one better. In Berndt Heinrich's books about corvids (crows, ravens, magpies) he talks about thier fascinating behavior of hunting with wolves. Ravens and wolves work together to hunt. The ravens will circle over dear heards and especially where calves or sick deer are available. The wolves know to follow the ravens. They kill the deer and eat their fill and then the ravens take over.

It would be no trouble for an enterprising priest of Odin to train a murder of ravens to seek out enemies. And, in fact, that is one of my Odin spells in my house rules viking RPG.

Ravens also do other crazy things. There have been multiple studies where ravens have been given straight pieces of wire and have an object in a bottle that can not be obtained with a simple straight wire. Most ravens, in a matter of minutes, figure out that you have to bend the wire to get the piece of meat. They will even try bending it in different spots on several pins to see which works best. This is actually MORE advanced then what most chimps will do (but more consistent with bonobo behavior).

We feed a group of ravens too… We give them scraps and extra eggs from our chickens a few times a week. They get quite excited around thanksgiving when we leave a little more for them. But, you don't want to leave too much and attract other things like racoons…

Had read a Smithsonian article, years ago, that showed how ravens could problem solve. Not so much crows ?

Wolfshanza wrote:

"Had read a Smithsonian article, years ago, that showed how ravens could problem solve. Not so much crows ?"

I think I read the same article, though maybe I'm mixing it up with something from National Geographic. I vaguely recall something about how ravens figured out how to pull up a treat on a string out of a cylinder by repeatedly stepping on the part of the string already pulled (thereby keeping the treat from falling back down the cylinder), while crows couldn't figure that particular trick out.

Anyway, I haven't seen any ravens 'round these parts (MA, USA). Got to go up into the mountains of NH or Maine to see them. Plenty of crows though, rotten thieves get into my garden…

Dave

Norscaman- I knew ravens were fascinating, intelligent creatures already- one lived somewhere near my ex-girlfriend's parents' house in Cournon, Auvergne, France, and pretty quickly learned to recognize me from out house-sitting adventures (her parents' traveled), and my habit of tossing it tiny bits of beef jerky (gotta love care packages from home) and bits of dried sausages, when I was out taking walk. Got to the point that he'd be out waiting for me at specific times, since I used to love taking a walk around 10pm down through the neighborhood to a culdesac where I could watch all the lights go out in town every night.

That level of problem-solving, re: the wire, however, I was not aware of. I do believe I'll be hunting me down copies of Heinrich's books. Any specific tiles I should look for?

- Monk

The local Australian "crows" (from memory, the species is the Little Raven – so not a crow?) are smart enough to use the "lift with the beak, hold with the foot, repeat" technique to obtain a tasty morsel… I've seen one basically turn a rubbish bin inside-out by pulling the black plastic garbage bag up to the top of the bin!

Our pet Cockatiel also shows this behaviour, and he's lived alone since he was very young, so it is not something he has learned by observing other birds. We use thin strips of leather as a more resilient alternative to string, to tie branches, food treats etc. inside his cage. He will happily haul up a c.20cm length of the stuff to get at a tasty millet spray tied onto the end.

Man, I don't know how I missed this discussion. Awesome.

That explains a lot. At the hotel in Denton, where I stayed for almost 3 months, the crows and other birds knew me and immediately got close to me (I always gave them bread and other things), no matter what I was wearing. But they always avoided everyone else.

So it was clearly not the color of my clothes that set me apart.

CC

Crow/Raven intelligence is fascinating topic, there's been a lot of great research on it. I think only Hornbills and some variety of parrot are considered to have better problem solving skills.

The ravens near where I work have an unsettling pattern of flocking in a huge mass (probably 1000+ birds) some days of the week and circling around ominously. Took me a few months to realize it was linked to when a local composting/fertilizer company collected food waste from the local co-op and restaurants. The truck didn't have a set schedule, but the ravens could recognize it and would follow it around.

-Will

Also, intelligent life from an alternate Earth:
link

-Will