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Photographer captures 'odd but exciting' crow behaviour known as anting

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Re: Photographer captures 'odd but exciting' crow behaviour known as anting

#61

Post by dr_dshiv »

dflock wrote: post #51
everly wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m inclined to think it’s akin to recreational drug usage in humans. Crows are supposedly more intelligent/aware than other animals, and with awareness comes existential dread or whatever you want to call it. Lots of humans use drugs to alleviate this and I think it’s plausible that crows do something similar. Hopefully I’m wrong and it’s a more uplifting reason.

Crows definitely get drunk, on purpose, by eating rotten fruit & berries, so this is plausible - although formic acid to the skin seems less fun - but then I'm not a crow.

Many animals get intoxicated—even insects! I recently read "animals and psychedelics" by G. Samorini. It had some pretty impressive examples.

Re: Photographer captures 'odd but exciting' crow behaviour known as anting

#62

Post by kozd »

bedobi wrote: post #23
optimalsolver wrote: post #17

>Dr. David Bird, an emeritus professor of wildlife biology with McGill University. Quite an appropriate name. Reminds me of the two most distinguished geologists of our day, Johnny Rockman and Bobby Boulders.

https://old.reddit.com/r/NominativeDeterminism

It gets even better. He used to teach WILD 420 Ornithology which was known for being a "bird course" (slang for easy course). https://www.mcgill.ca/study/2012-2013/courses/wild-420

Re: Photographer captures 'odd but exciting' crow behaviour known as anting

#63

Post by hbarka »

belter wrote: post #11

Crows actions are on par or exceed Octopus level of smartness "Smart Crow uses cars to crack nuts in Akita, Japan" https://youtu.be/NenEdSuL7QU "Are Crows the Ultimate Problem Solvers?" https://youtu.be/cbSu2PXOTOc

“My Crow Teacher” coming soon on Netflix

Re: Photographer captures 'odd but exciting' crow behaviour known as anting

#64

Post by reedf1 »

optimalsolver wrote: post #17

>Dr. David Bird, an emeritus professor of wildlife biology with McGill University. Quite an appropriate name. Reminds me of the two most distinguished geologists of our day, Johnny Rockman and Bobby Boulders.

My first name is Reed - guess what my favourite thing to do is?

Re: Photographer captures 'odd but exciting' crow behaviour known as anting

#65

Post by Cosmin_C »

YZF wrote: post #53
amanaplanacanal wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m south of you in Oregon, and I’ve seen a single crow chase away a red tailed Hawk. It’s definitely a strange sight.

The eagles are somewhat less maneuverable- crows are very nimble flyers. I just saw a crow on my walk today land backwards in the wind. They can avoid the claws and beak... Sort of like a monkey harassing a tiger. They'll actually pull feathers off the eagle. Every now and then the eagles pull some crazy moves though to get away, they'll tilt sideways and fall. It's like a move you might see in fighter jet dogfights.…

At first I read it like the crows in your area are harassing Harrier jump jets.

Re: Photographer captures 'odd but exciting' crow behaviour known as anting

#67

Post by choeger »

rantwasp wrote: post #20
tpmx wrote: post #7

I live in a place where I get to witness epic battles between a murder of crows and a colony of seagulls on a daily basis this time of the year. The seagulls are nesting on the roofs of nearby houses. The crows are trying to eat the seagull hatchlings. It's kind of fascinating to watch. It seems like the crows are trying new strategies every new day. The much larger seagulls are wasting lots of energy in a kinda stup…

i got to witness a murder of crow harassing 2 bald eagles until the eagles just gave up and left. we’re not even talking a lot. There were maybe 6-7 crows. The theory I heard is the bald eagle(s) could easily take them on but they risk injury and the crows will try to mess them up. So the eagles just don’t risk it and move on + hunt things that don’t fight back (like rabbits). also, I can swear that crows taunt my do…

If crows did that to my dog, I would shoot them. ... With a super soaker. I imagine it to be quite hilarious to teach these birds a lesson ;).

Re: Photographer captures 'odd but exciting' crow behaviour known as anting

#68

Post by jamal-kumar »

I grew up on this island where this photo was taken, crows and especially their huge cousins the ravens were some of the coolest creatures on two wings around. I remember one of them coming up to a table where me and my brother were playing uno and the bird just brazenly came up to us and stole one of the cards, we were bugging out because we had borrowed the set from a friend

and unfortunately i have a photo of some fat naked dude sitting on an anthill smiling scratching his beard covered in ants so this behaviour isn't really restricted to crows. it's like a thing in Finland or something. It is the first result for 'man sitting on ants' in google image search but it's blurred out and you have to click through to see

Re: Photographer captures 'odd but exciting' crow behaviour known as anting

#69

Post by CapsAdmin »

tpmx wrote: post #7

I live in a place where I get to witness epic battles between a murder of crows and a colony of seagulls on a daily basis this time of the year. The seagulls are nesting on the roofs of nearby houses. The crows are trying to eat the seagull hatchlings. It's kind of fascinating to watch. It seems like the crows are trying new strategies every new day. The much larger seagulls are wasting lots of energy in a kinda stup…

Same here, except I haven't seen crows stealing eggs. We've observed a herring gull mother protecting her eggs until they've hatched. We never saw her leaving the nest. At most we've observed other seagulls being chased away by the partner.

There are 2 common seagulls here who get very excited sometimes. They fly around and make short calls in sync with eachother. Last week I saw them chasing a hooded crow around just outside my window, but I'm kinda unsure if it's play since I've seen them sit relatively close to each other without caring.

But for some very strange reason, one of the hooded crow seems to HATE me. If I walk down the street here he'll follow and scream at me. He'll sometimes sit outside my window from afar and watch me too. He'll follow me as far as his territory goes (around 300 meters in diameter)

It's the strangest thing that's ever happened to me. It's like I did something really bad to him.

I've gone out to see him a few times out of curiosity. I tried giving him food and he does take it eventually, but it doesn't seem like that's what he's there for.

Re: Photographer captures 'odd but exciting' crow behaviour known as anting

#70

Post by jamal-kumar »

everly wrote: post #49
lioeters wrote: post #2

> [A]nting is..where birds rub insects, usually ants, on their feathers and skin. > Some birds will sit still on an anthill and patiently allow the creatures to crawl freely through their feathers. At other times they have been seen to pick the ants up with their beaks and rub themselves with the tiny insects. > Sensing a threat, the ants shoot a spray of formic acid from their abdomens or anal glands which gets abso…

I’m inclined to think it’s akin to recreational drug usage in humans. Crows are supposedly more intelligent/aware than other animals, and with awareness comes existential dread or whatever you want to call it. Lots of humans use drugs to alleviate this and I think it’s plausible that crows do something similar. Hopefully I’m wrong and it’s a more uplifting reason.

Yeah there's an entire BBC doc segment about this in the series 'weird nature'. I think the only one that freaked me out really was how drunk bees get detected by 'bouncer' bees at the hive who rip their wings and limbs off if they come back too wasted

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbXJunKCq60

here it is with some awful americanized dubbing

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