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Crows could be the smartest animal other than primates

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441–443 of 443 posts

Re: Crows could be the smartest animal other than primates

#441

When I was a child, I'd spend a lot of time at my grandfathers farm, and one summer he took in an injured crow that hurt its wing. For some strange reason, he named all of his animals Jack, cats, dogs and now crows. So we'd go out in the morning and my grandfather would call out "Jack" and the Dog would come running down the yard, and then next thing you'd see the crow hopping down the yard after the dog. It would ar…

Crows also have vocal chords capable of producing human language, and - similar to parrots - they can learn human phrases in the right conditions. My partner used to volunteer at the local Wildcare and they had an injured crow resident that they couldn't release named Da Vinci. Da Vinci would always greet visitors with "Hello! How are you? How are you?"

When I was 12 or so we had a neighbor who had a pet raven or crow, not sure which. But this bird did the owners cigarette cough and gravel gert voice perfectly for 10 or so words.

Someone later gave the guy a mynah bird that had a 30 or so word vocabulary. The birds eventually taught each other the words and the cough.

It was pretty funny to walk past that house on a nice day and hear 3 cigarette coughs and hearing the mynah say happy halloween in a sort-of witch voice no matter the time of the year.

Re: Crows could be the smartest animal other than primates

#442

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was in Nepal having breakfast. Some crows are sitting there watching me eat. I look down to read my book, and in not more than a few seconds, I hear the clinking of dishes. I look up and the crows are flying off with my toast and jam. It was right in front of me, but they were quick enough to get in and out before I could react. I realized that they are probably aware of my lack of attention to my food and that the…

I had lunch with a crow in Austin once! It was my favorite experience. I was having pizza on an outside table on 3rd/2nd ave, and a Crow was standing nearby looking at me, probably waiting until I finished so it could swoop in on the left-overs. I motioned it to come closer, left a bit of pizza on top of the table, and it flew up on the table with me. Then I'd munch on a bite, tear off a piece for the crow, and it wo…

are you sure it wasn’t a grackle, being in Austin and all?

Re: Crows could be the smartest animal other than primates

#443

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Intelligence might be easy to evolve, but have a high energy cost. In many environments, the extra intelligence wouldn't allow you to find enough extra food for the trait to be worthwhile.

There's a huge flock of crows gathering near a golf course where I live every winter. I looked it up, and apparently this species live pairwise in summer but in huge flocks in winter. I honestly wonder how they can find enough food, there are so many of them.

Humans make a LOT of trash and much of it is discarded food that they can scavenge. I suspect that the variety of animals such as crows and rats and their large population sizes is directly correlated with the growth of humanity.

I don't think they would exist in such large numbers without us, basically.

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