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How to Befriend Crows

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Re: How to Befriend Crows

#221

Post by Sylamore »

maxbond wrote: post #58
lisper wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, of course. Your tone has to convey not only, "I am not a predator" but also "I do not perceive you as a threat, and so the purpose of my vocalization is not to scare you away because I perceive you as a threat, and if you come close I am likely to try to harm you in order to defend myself." In nature, the Bayesian prior on an entity that is not a member of your species, or even your tribe, seeking an interaction…

Hummingbirds I've noticed are very curious about other creatures. To a fault even, mantises will sometimes exploit this to catch hummingbirds (they are much more powerful than you might expect). I don't know if this is universal across hummingbird species/groups, but I'm able get very close to them by just patiently standing still by the feeder for 10 or 15 minutes, and they'll start investigating me.

Growing up my great grandmother kept about 3 dozen hummingbird feeders near her back porch at her farm so she could watch the hummingbirds as they fed. She easily went through 4 gallons of sugar water per day. I was told as a kid that she had been documented as having altered the migration paths of several flocks of hummingbirds because she had been maintaining her feeders for over 30 years at the time of her death and they would remember where her farm was.

They would flit past your head when you went out to refill them, but they seldom went more than a few feet away. You could stand under under the feeders and after a few minutes, if you were calm enough, they would start be willing to land on you and rest, or lick off any syrup you had gotten on your hands.

Re: How to Befriend Crows

#222

Post by tanseydavid »

Lio wrote: post #89
Cupertino95014 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think his comment meant "edibility rises linearly with age." I think it meant "it reaches a peak" and implicitly "and then declines from there."

There's only one way to get to the bottom of this... we're going to have to have eat a lot of crows. No arguments now, this is science damn it!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eating_crow

Re: How to Befriend Crows

#223

Post by tanseydavid »

IntrepidWorm wrote: post #97
parentheseus wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Advice/Accounts on how to befriend crows has been submitted here in the past, but there hasn't been anything regarding cows, unfortunately. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

Oddly enough, cows seem to enjoy big band and jazz. https://youtu.be/lXKDu6cdXLI Now that's some cultured dairy!

Cows seem to be mesmerized by almost any sort of music.

Re: How to Befriend Crows

#225

Post by Abishek_Muthian »

hzay wrote: post #220
Abishek_Muthian wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I belong to an ancestor worshiping culture(தமிழ்|Tamizh), Crows have very high reverence here as they're believed to be carrying our ancestors soul. So each day many people here feed the crows first with rice before breakfast and on new moon day many undergo fasting, Make special food and give it to the crows first. Obviously crows , Extraordinarily intelligent as they are keep perfect timings for their food and seem…

Tamilian here. There was a crow that would come and insist upon getting Biscuits only from my mother, pre covid. It would sit on the balcony handrail and caw until she goes to the fridge, then quietly wait for the biscuit, take it from her hand and leave. If she's out of Biscuits and gives it something else it would become quite offended, refuse the food and sit there cawing pitieously. I learned that Biscuits are ba…

Nice happy story. Thanks for sharing.

Re: How to Befriend Crows

#226

Post by cwillu »

eyelidlessness wrote: post #176
mcbits wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The birds around here don't stick around long enough to let me earn their trust, but I can get pretty close to the deer, rabbits, and squirrels just by pointing the camera off to my side so I'm standing perpendicular and appear to be focused on stuff on the ground instead of them.

Oh damn I meant to mention rabbits! At least the ones around me don’t even mind if I point a camera at them so long as I’m looking another way. So I have lots of good blurry or poorly aimed rabbit photos. They really do seem to believe that if they go totally still nothing can see them until proven otherwise. And maybe they’re right, I almost always have to tell my pup “there’s a bun!” And even then it’s usually afte…

You see a rabbit mostly against the grass or bush it's hiding around. A dog sees it against all the scattered terrain behind it. It's amazing how much difference an extra 4-5 feet of height makes for picking thigs out of a background.

Re: How to Befriend Crows

#227

Post by eyelidlessness »

cwillu wrote: post #226
eyelidlessness wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh damn I meant to mention rabbits! At least the ones around me don’t even mind if I point a camera at them so long as I’m looking another way. So I have lots of good blurry or poorly aimed rabbit photos. They really do seem to believe that if they go totally still nothing can see them until proven otherwise. And maybe they’re right, I almost always have to tell my pup “there’s a bun!” And even then it’s usually afte…

You see a rabbit mostly against the grass or bush it's hiding around. A dog sees it against all the scattered terrain behind it. It's amazing how much difference an extra 4-5 feet of height makes for picking thigs out of a background.

This is a perfectly reasonable explanation, but I actively try to get my pup to see the buns around her and she stops seeing them when they stand still even if she had already seen them. She’s a very smart pup, but has a distinct bunny blindness!

Re: How to Befriend Crows

#228

Post by wpietri »

fsckboy wrote: post #178
wpietri wrote: post #5

I can vouch for this approach. I lived in the territory of a couple of ravens (close relatives of crows; just as smart and twice as large) and it took me maybe 18 months to build a close relationship. I started out just talking to them and throwing whole peanuts (roasted, unsalted) on the ground while I was doing it. They looked at me warily and did not come close. Later on, the peanuts would disappear, but I was nev…

> I can vouch for this approach. I lived in the territory of a couple of ravens (close relatives of crows; just as smart and twice as large) Here's the thing. You're suggesting a raven is as intelligent as a crow. Are they in the same family? Yes, Corvus . But scientists who study crows, will tell say, specifically, crows are smarter than ravens. But it would be okay for either of us to just admit we're wrong, you kn…

Your evidence is... a poorly written, totally citation-free marketing spam blog?

Re: How to Befriend Crows

#229

Post by wpietri »

hzay wrote: post #220
Abishek_Muthian wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I belong to an ancestor worshiping culture(தமிழ்|Tamizh), Crows have very high reverence here as they're believed to be carrying our ancestors soul. So each day many people here feed the crows first with rice before breakfast and on new moon day many undergo fasting, Make special food and give it to the crows first. Obviously crows , Extraordinarily intelligent as they are keep perfect timings for their food and seem…

Tamilian here. There was a crow that would come and insist upon getting Biscuits only from my mother, pre covid. It would sit on the balcony handrail and caw until she goes to the fridge, then quietly wait for the biscuit, take it from her hand and leave. If she's out of Biscuits and gives it something else it would become quite offended, refuse the food and sit there cawing pitieously. I learned that Biscuits are ba…

Thanks to both of you for posting about this. I love both the broad context and the specific story.
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