That was weird. Also TIL that English of course has a specific word for a bunch of crows: a murder of crows [1]. As a non-native user of the language, that was ... surprising.
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
#82Earlier quoted context omitted.
People do seem to gravitate/grow into their names. The one that stands out to me is Schwarzschild radius: schwarz == black.
Schild means shield btw. I had a friend with a schild name and for the longest time pronounced it "child" without them correcting me. I felt so embarrassed when I realized it means shield.
That's how the ending is usually pronounced in English though. Consider how Americans say "Rothschild".
Re: Photographer captures 'odd but exciting' crow behaviour known as anting
#83I 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 jus…
Geese have an angry-defending-the-nest mode and an eating-food mode that are mutually exclusive.
Eating food overrides, which means with just a small handful of goose food you can wander up to a nest and do whatever you like without being threatened by mother goose.
Beware the moment the food runs out, defend-the-nest mode is reenabled and you'll get viciously attacked.
Kinda odd - I guess no predators think to make use of this by bringing some food!
Re: Photographer captures 'odd but exciting' crow behaviour known as anting
#84That was weird. Also TIL that English of course has a specific word for a bunch of crows: a murder of crows [1]. As a non-native user of the language, that was ... surprising. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Crows
Relevant: https://m.imgur.com/8HxDu
Another fun one: a gaggle of geese
Re: Photographer captures 'odd but exciting' crow behaviour known as anting
#85Earlier 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.
Wait, this is the first I’ve ever heard of drugs being used to alleviate existential dread. I’ve never experienced or understood existential dread, so maybe that is why this seems strange to me, but do you have any sources about your assertion?
Not really, aside from personal experience/observation. Not sure what type of source there would be; perhaps a survey/study of self-reported reasons for drug use?
Surely you’ve heard of drug/alcohol abuse referred to as an “escape”, no? Existential dread/angst is just another thing to try to escape from.
Re: Photographer captures 'odd but exciting' crow behaviour known as anting
#86>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?
Play the saxophone?
Re: Photographer captures 'odd but exciting' crow behaviour known as anting
#87Re: Photographer captures 'odd but exciting' crow behaviour known as anting
#88That was weird. Also TIL that English of course has a specific word for a bunch of crows: a murder of crows [1]. As a non-native user of the language, that was ... surprising. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Crows
In English, collective nouns for a group of (usually animals) are full of surprises and often sound quite creative. A wake of vultures, a rave of ravens, a rookery of seals, and so on.
Re: Photographer captures 'odd but exciting' crow behaviour known as anting
#89>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.
People do seem to gravitate/grow into their names. The one that stands out to me is Schwarzschild radius: schwarz == black.
Watching a lot of science/astronomy related content on YouTube I've noticed that on most of the english-speaking channels the name ist pronounce wrongly (schwarz-child, instead of schwarz-chilled)
PBS spacetime does it right though.