81–90 of 140 posts
John Marzluff & Tony Angell: Gifts of the Crow (2012)
Video: https://archive.org/details/scm-67314-johnmarzlufftonyangell...
Book: http://books.simonandschuster.com/Gifts-of-the-Crow/John-Mar...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Perhaps in the mind of the crows, they are giving gifts as a reward. In effect, training the human (in the article).
That is mind-blowing, and makes me want to reevaluate the concept of gift giving.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I stopped being mesmerized by TED talks after reading http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/12/magazine/12letters-t-CORRE... . I was further disappointed that the Ted talk webpage was not updated after that development.
How does TED fits in all of this?
From time to time birds would fly into the building and those that survived usually needed some place to recuperate a bit. I became well known in the neighborhood as "the bird boy" for my seemingly miraculous ability to nurse stunned birds back to health...several of the other kids in the neighborhood tried it as well, but they ended up killing all their birds.
For a while I had a pet robin, too young to fly. He had fallen from his nest and was abandoned after that. I took him in and fed and raised him till eventually turning him over to a local animal sanctuary. While I had him, for all that time, I had a friend on my shoulder or head pretty much wherever I went. He knew who my family was and who my friends were, and would stay away from people he didn't know. He knew where I kept his food and the process I had to go through the make it ready for him to eat.
I don't recall ever being pooped on by him, not even once. He'd hold it till I put him in his house, or up on a branch while out playing with my friends. He never bit me, or did anything aggressive towards me. But he'd misbehave with other people he didn't know.
One day, in a well meaning attempt to set him free, my mother dropped me off from school and then dropped my bird off in the woods. I came home and couldn't find him, my mother lied and said that he had flown away (which I knew was patently false). Finally, out of guilt, my mother fessed up and I ran out to the woods where she had dropped him off.
He had waited patiently all day for me and vigorously hopped towards me when he saw me coming, chirping his head off in angry protest. He was shivering and starving and getting him back home, warm and fed was the guiltiest I ever felt.
Not a crow, but definitely a cool experience with wild birds.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Perhaps in the mind of the crows, they are giving gifts as a reward. In effect, training the human (in the article).
That is mind-blowing, and makes me want to reevaluate the concept of gift giving.
Hoaxes involving children and/or their magical gifts: http://tempr.org/54ef57337b951.html
A lot of people refuse to believe that animals (or birds) can show any kind of advanced thinking. "Oh, the crow was probably carrying something in its beak; it saw the peanut, and dropped the thing in its beak" is their explanation. I'm sorry, but animals are far more perceptive than they're given credit for. Also, how do you explain this? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5NuBk5_Izc
- Doris Lessing
Hoaxes involving children and/or their magical gifts: http://tempr.org/54ef57337b951.html