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Kind of ironic, but the picture used seems to be of a raven - not a crow. Feathers on the beak are quite far out, the shape of the head isn’t as “streamlined” and the top beak is more curved and longer. Or am I mistaken here?
I feed the crows cashews as I walk the dog, and I find their behavior fascinating. They "commute to work" each day. Crows all live in a community that they go home to each night, and then each morning they all come back to their specific areas, usually in pairs. If you're in a place where you see crows every day, it's almost certainly the same pair of crows you’re seeing each day. Each pair has a strict territory. I…
How did you manage to get started? The crows close to me are so skittish that if I try to throw a peanut at them they just fly off and never come back. I've only managed to not have that happen once.
They don’t let me get close to them, but sometimes they do fly up from behind and tap me on the back of the head to get my attention.
Also, unlike the guy up the street, I only throw out a few at a time so they have to sort of follow me to get anything.
My ultimate goal is to be able to point at someone and have the crows attack them like in Bioshock. It’ll be my thing for when society collapses. So far, however, I think our relationship is much more “let’s get some peanuts off this sucker” than “I’ll loyally follow this peanut person into battle”.
I feed the crows cashews as I walk the dog, and I find their behavior fascinating. They "commute to work" each day. Crows all live in a community that they go home to each night, and then each morning they all come back to their specific areas, usually in pairs. If you're in a place where you see crows every day, it's almost certainly the same pair of crows you’re seeing each day. Each pair has a strict territory. I…
How did you manage to get started? The crows close to me are so skittish that if I try to throw a peanut at them they just fly off and never come back. I've only managed to not have that happen once.
In time some might become more interested in you, depending on mood, and will come closer to you.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
How did you manage to get started? The crows close to me are so skittish that if I try to throw a peanut at them they just fly off and never come back. I've only managed to not have that happen once.
Hmm, if you’re literally throwing it at them, yeah, they don’t like that. You just kinda have to throw it where they can see it, then walk away, and they’ll come running over to scoop them up. Do that for a week or two and they’ll start looking for you. Also, cashews are their favorite (based on watching them pick the cashews out of trail mix and then come back for the other stuff later). They don’t let me get close…
> Some scientists remain skeptical. Arnaud Rey, a senior researcher in psychology at the French National Center for Scientific Research, says the findings can still be interpreted from a simple associative learning standpoint—in which an animal learns to link one symbol to the next, such as connecting an open bracket with a closed one. A key reason, he explains, lies in a feature of the study design: the researchers…
"In Rey’s view, the notion of “recursive processing” as a unique form of cognition is in itself flawed. Even in humans, he says, this capacity can most likely be explained simply through associative learning mechanisms..."
AFAIK, this contrasts quite markedly with Chomsky's position that recursion is central to his universal grammar.
So, crows, cetaceans, octopuses, and elephants… let’s just be thankful that all of the other smart animals can’t manipulate their environments at scale.
tldr is ancient elephants manipulating the environmemt at scale and enslaving ancient humans. Short worthwhile read with fun details to justify the narrative.
I feed the crows cashews as I walk the dog, and I find their behavior fascinating. They "commute to work" each day. Crows all live in a community that they go home to each night, and then each morning they all come back to their specific areas, usually in pairs. If you're in a place where you see crows every day, it's almost certainly the same pair of crows you’re seeing each day. Each pair has a strict territory. I…
How did you manage to get started? The crows close to me are so skittish that if I try to throw a peanut at them they just fly off and never come back. I've only managed to not have that happen once.
If you set out food and then watch them that means (in crow) that you are a hunter, and a lousy one, and you're trying to hunt them.
Toss out some food and "forget" it and they'll think you're such a successful hunter that you don't even need to every scrap. Someone worth knowing.
In the old days, crows would go on the hunt with us and fly over hidden game in the bush dipping a wing in a certain way to let you know where it is, then you share the meat with them. They still remember even if most of us have forgotten. ;)
I feed the crows cashews as I walk the dog, and I find their behavior fascinating. They "commute to work" each day. Crows all live in a community that they go home to each night, and then each morning they all come back to their specific areas, usually in pairs. If you're in a place where you see crows every day, it's almost certainly the same pair of crows you’re seeing each day. Each pair has a strict territory. I…
I can't say whether it occurs only at certain times of the year, and I have not paid any attention to where the birds go afterwards.