Crows are real smart. On an episode of Roderick on the Line, John Roderick recalled a story he read where a researcher was trying to round up crows for tests. He went into a parking lot and tossed a net, capturing some. The next day, he went to a different parking lot across town and the crows immediately flew away when he pulled in, because they recognized him. He went back to the same second parking lot in a different vehicle and was able to capture some, but then that vehicle didn't work. He started wearing masks and trying all sorts of tricks, but as far as he could tell, the crows were communicating through town.
A girl who gets gifts from birds
71–80 of 140 posts
Re: A girl who gets gifts from birds
#72Earlier quoted context omitted.
Crow flies with thing in its beak. Sees food, drops thing, grabs food. Comes back later, sees more food! Assumes food came from dropping thing (See "Superstition in the pigeon" [0]). Meme spreads among the crows. No ethics or deep reasoning required. Random rewards lead to irrational behavior. [0] http://psychclassics.asu.edu/Skinner/Pigeon/
Man looks up to the sky in distress. Man prays to the Sun. Tomorrow problem is solved. Assumes Sun fixed problem. Meme spreads among men. Addendum: Other man says this is random. Sun believer says don't insult my problem solver. Other man persists. Sun believer kills him.
I think I may have worked at that company. Was the sun believer called Phil?
Re: A girl who gets gifts from birds
#73I had a pet crow when I was about 6 years old - he was a fledgeling who'd left his nest on the hottest day of the year and was dehydrated. My brother and I were squirting eachother with water and he cawed at us until we squirted him. He decided this was the best thing ever, and basically adopted us from then onwards. He was the terror of the local cats and dogs, but left our two siamese alone because he knew they wer…
Great story, indeed.
Re: A girl who gets gifts from birds
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
Conversely, I think Christians (for one) do not like the idea of animals having "human traits", because it goes against their core mythology, which says that God created man in His image. If animals also started showing human traits, then Man isn't so special anymore, is he? Edited: I'm being downvoted, but this was the exact reasoning given to me by a rather devout Christian; and it seemed to make sense. I'm agnosti…
Counter-argument: The popularity of the Narnia books.
That's not a counter argument
Re: A girl who gets gifts from birds
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The final example though, where a Crow returns the camera-lens cap to the family requires some pretty advanced thinking. I think the article (and probably the podcast? haven't listened yet) make too big a deal of this. We don't know that the crows realized that the lens cap belonged to those people. Perhaps they just saw it as another neat thing to gift. Perhaps they smelled the family on it, and just returned it t…
Perhaps they smelled the family on it, and just returned it to a place that smelled similarly. Can you do that?
I can't, but I have no idea what that's supposed to prove. That animals have abilities I don't? I can't fly, either, or swim in the arctic ocean and catch fish with my mouth.
Re: A girl who gets gifts from birds
#76Hoaxes involving children and/or their magical gifts: http://tempr.org/54ef57337b951.html
a.) there are no gifts involved in the stories you posted
b.) it seems like the bbc witnessed the gift-giving
Re: A girl who gets gifts from birds
#77Earlier quoted context omitted.
The final example though, where a Crow returns the camera-lens cap to the family requires some pretty advanced thinking. We know that Crows recognize human faces and expressions, and communicate these facts amongst each other. Crows / Ravens are the only creature aside from Humans who perform meta-tool use. They can use tools to grab tools to accomplish a goal. In many ways, they're smarter than (non-human) primates,…
> The final example though, where a Crow returns the camera-lens cap to the family requires some pretty advanced thinking. I think the article (and probably the podcast? haven't listened yet) make too big a deal of this. We don't know that the crows realized that the lens cap belonged to those people. Perhaps they just saw it as another neat thing to gift. Perhaps they smelled the family on it, and just returned it t…
Do birds have a sense of smell?
Re: A girl who gets gifts from birds
#78David Suzuki did an interesting show about crows but of course due to annoying geoIP copyright can't find an American version to link.
http://www.cbc.ca/natureofthings/m/episodes/a-murder-of-crow...
There's signs up at some Indian public markets forbidding vendors taking payment from monkeys as they watched humans exchange cash for fruit and became pickpockets. No gifts though except a huge tip when handing over piles of notes for one bunch of bananas.
Re: A girl who gets gifts from birds
#79I had a pet crow when I was about 6 years old - he was a fledgeling who'd left his nest on the hottest day of the year and was dehydrated. My brother and I were squirting eachother with water and he cawed at us until we squirted him. He decided this was the best thing ever, and basically adopted us from then onwards. He was the terror of the local cats and dogs, but left our two siamese alone because he knew they wer…
I've always heard that crows are incredibly smart. Great story. :)
Crows are incredibly smart.
They are known to memorize curbside garbage pick up routes of city vehicles and the specific days for each neighborhood, within a city. They are also quick to adapt, given a change in schedule and only visit those specific neighborhoods only on those specific days, from miles away.
Here's a video of crow performing a multi-step tool action test - a test of intelligence - for the first time, without guidance and solving it in the first attempt.
[1] Crow Intelligence - Multi-Step Tool Action Test
Re: A girl who gets gifts from birds
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The final example though, where a Crow returns the camera-lens cap to the family requires some pretty advanced thinking. I think the article (and probably the podcast? haven't listened yet) make too big a deal of this. We don't know that the crows realized that the lens cap belonged to those people. Perhaps they just saw it as another neat thing to gift. Perhaps they smelled the family on it, and just returned it t…
Do birds have a sense of smell?
Apparently, yes: http://www.audubon.org/news/do-birds-have-sense-smell