When a crow dies, the other crows investigate the cause of death (2015) • Hacker News Board

Re: When a crow dies, the other crows investigate the cause of death (2015)

#221

Post by chrisseaton » Wed, Jul 20, 2016, 9:39 PM UTC

goda90 wrote: post #218

chrisseaton wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I took a wilderness survival course in college That's interesting - do you mean as a part of a social club, or actual scholarly study of survival techniques? Or maybe to support a major in something like archeology? Or maybe a military college?

It was an actual elective class as part of the "Recreation Management" major at my university, but I took it for fun. We talked about and practiced techniques for building fire, shelter, and tools, as well as foraging for food and being wary of physical and mental problems that arise in survival situations. Supposedly back in the day(70s and 80s) it was actually a month long trek out in the wilderness and some studen…

I don't think any universities in the UK do these kind of diverse elective courses. Sometimes you can do one or two courses from outside your major, but they're courses from another major rather than something entirely standalone. Is this what is meant by a 'liberal arts' education?

The UK aggressively specialises. I started to specialise towards CS at around 16, and started to drop arts and other subjects then, two years before university, and at university I never took anything outside the CS course (apart from one Latin course, but that was unusual because I could already program).

Re: When a crow dies, the other crows investigate the cause of death (2015)

#222

Post by Gracana » Wed, Jul 20, 2016, 11:15 PM UTC

SEJeff wrote: post #192

Gracana wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't sound anything like self defense.

If they are trying to peck you, how is it not self defense?!

It's entirely unnecessary cruelty. Taking a weapon with you so you can retaliate after you provoke an attack isn't a defensive strategy.

Re: When a crow dies, the other crows investigate the cause of death (2015)

#223

Post by unicornporn » Wed, Jul 20, 2016, 11:17 PM UTC

kawsper wrote: post #77

unicornporn wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

:) I've written about my encounters with hooded crows on Hacker News in this comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11540261

Which type of nuts and seeds did you use?

Mostly cashew, but they love peanuts in the shell and instinctively knew what it was and how to open them.

Re: When a crow dies, the other crows investigate the cause of death (2015)

#224

Post by blastrat » Wed, Jul 20, 2016, 11:19 PM UTC

dec0dedab0de wrote: post #128

Unklejoe wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[They stayed up there and screeched the whole time I was cleaning up (maybe ten minutes).] I probably would have went inside and left the remains to nature. I commend your bravery. It seems like a squad of crows could do some real damage to a person. Also, I can confirm that raccoons are very intelligent. They're basically like dogs but with more "street smarts". I learned this after trying to get one to leave my att…

It seems like a squad of crows could do some real damage to a person. A group of crows is called a murder, not that it matters, but it fits the theme of the story a bit.

The big list of collective nouns for animals is just a made up thing, sort of like a book of poetry.

There are a small number of ye olde Englishe words for some types of groups (like school of fish) and some of the fanciful names from the book have moved into common usage, but the dramatically expanded version is not known to have ever been actually used

some info here https://www.macquariedictionary.com.au/resources/view/resour...

this is one old source https://archive.org/details/cu31924031031184

Re: When a crow dies, the other crows investigate the cause of death (2015)

#225

Post by carapace » Thu, Jul 21, 2016, 12:33 AM UTC

thedoctor79 wrote: post #148

carapace wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't downvote, it's true. Animals can read your thoughts. The mechanism seems to be that they can see your visualizations: I can call my sister's cat in from outside "telepathically" by clearly "seeing" in my mind's eye the cat walking in the back door and "sending" the imagery to him. Sometimes the if the back door is closed and I'm not distracted by computer or something he "calls" me to open the door. Subjectivel…

No, I'm sorry, you got this wrong. When you do that, you are not "calling" the cat, you are effectively controlling it with your mind eye. You need to be very careful with that, doing it long term can result in damage to the cat.

I understand your concern. I am very careful. Ahimsa and non-coercion are primary to my nature. The cat will "blow me off" sometimes if he's stalking or napping and doesn't want to come in.

Re: When a crow dies, the other crows investigate the cause of death (2015)

#226

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Jul 21, 2016, 12:38 AM UTC

LyndsySimon wrote: post #168

carapace wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't downvote, it's true. Animals can read your thoughts. The mechanism seems to be that they can see your visualizations: I can call my sister's cat in from outside "telepathically" by clearly "seeing" in my mind's eye the cat walking in the back door and "sending" the imagery to him. Sometimes the if the back door is closed and I'm not distracted by computer or something he "calls" me to open the door. Subjectivel…

> Sometimes the if the back door is closed and I'm not distracted by computer or something he "calls" me to open the door. Subjectively, I get this subtle "ping" that feels like "I should open the door for the cat" so I do and he's there waiting. I've experienced similar things, as I have both small children and a very fat cat that doesn't like to jump over our toddler gate. I've been playing games with headphones on…

[deleted]

Re: When a crow dies, the other crows investigate the cause of death (2015)

#227

Post by chrisbennet » Thu, Jul 21, 2016, 1:15 AM UTC

Unklejoe wrote: post #127

SiVal wrote: post #124

A VERY timely article for me. About a month ago here in Silicon Valley, I noticed that a crow had been violently torn apart and the pieces scattered all over my backyard lawn. I assume the killer was a raccoon--another improbably intelligent animal. How those fat, little ninjas do what they do is beyond me, but one had apparently caught a crow. A few hours after I noticed the carnage, I grabbed a paper grocery bag an…

[They stayed up there and screeched the whole time I was cleaning up (maybe ten minutes).] I probably would have went inside and left the remains to nature. I commend your bravery. It seems like a squad of crows could do some real damage to a person. Also, I can confirm that raccoons are very intelligent. They're basically like dogs but with more "street smarts". I learned this after trying to get one to leave my att…

"Baylisascaris infection is caused by a roundworm found in raccoons. This roundworm can infect people as well as a variety of other animals, including dogs. Human infections are rare, but can be severe if the parasites invade the eye (ocular larva migrans), organs (visceral larva migrans) or the brain (neural larva migrans)."

The "mouse virus" is a different thing.

Re: When a crow dies, the other crows investigate the cause of death (2015)

#228

Post by andrewflnr » Thu, Jul 21, 2016, 3:34 AM UTC

Gracana wrote: post #222

SEJeff wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they are trying to peck you, how is it not self defense?!

It's entirely unnecessary cruelty. Taking a weapon with you so you can retaliate after you provoke an attack isn't a defensive strategy.

Cleaning up bird corpses near human habitation habitat isn't necessary? You have curious ideas of what's necessary.

Re: When a crow dies, the other crows investigate the cause of death (2015)

#229

Post by kissickas » Thu, Jul 21, 2016, 6:51 AM UTC

joveian wrote: post #216

kissickas wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like crows are prime for weaponization (maybe expressing my inner Dick Cheney here). Just don a mask and attack a few crows near your target, leaving some witnesses. Has it ever been done before? A quick Google search didn't uncover anything.

Sound like high risk for low reward, even if they don't figure out that the other people aren't involved which they might. At first I thought you ment like this: http://cyberneticzoo.com/bionics/1940-project-pigeon-1948-pr...

Hilarious! Reminded me of https://archive.google.com/pigeonrank/

Re: When a crow dies, the other crows investigate the cause of death (2015)

#230

Post by yaowenjiaozi » Thu, Jul 21, 2016, 7:24 AM UTC

SEJeff wrote: post #164

kamaal wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>They went so berserk that I thought for sure they would swoop down and peck at me like Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds", but they didn't. You got lucky. Here in India, crows get electrified all the time and if you try to clean up a good set of crows will peck on you. And trust me I've been pecked once and it hurts real bad, some times it rough enough to make a person bleed.

Would it be unreasonable to go at them with a cricket bat if they dive bomb you? Not out of aggression, but self defense.

Once I was picked on by crows in my neighborhood. A few birds would swoop down and tried to / made a show of pecking me on the head. I picked up fallen twigs about the size of walking sticks which I swung above my head like a helicopter's rotors. Did that a few times and the birds stopped bothering me.

The attacks started after I walked past a crow on the ground that was apparently injured or something. Once I _made eye contact_ (!) with that crow, the others up in the tree went beserk and started the attacks.