American Crows
I just added a Video starring an American Crow and its sidekick – another American Crow. I finally caught them rearranging the rocks in both birdbaths.
Crows are amongst the most intelligent birds. And they are not just smart, they are clever. And as this video will show you, it seems to me they have longer attention spans than we human beings are showing in today’s world.
Several years ago, there was an excellent program on PBS. It was part of their NOVA series and was called “Do Birds Remember Faces?” This information was also presented on PBS in one of their shows in their Nature series. You can type NOVA and the program name into your search engine and you will be able to read all about this fascinating research and experimentation. John Marzulff and his lab assistants from the University of Washington are leading many of these studies. To summarize:
Crows can remember faces for years.
Crows learn from each other – from their parents, their siblings, and all the other members of their flock.
Crows can distinguish between neutral and dangerous faces.
But what really totally floored me was that crows remember faces when they are presented upside down.
Here is a summary taken from AI on a Google search I made:
“In one experiment, scientist John Marzluff and his lab members wore masks based on the faces of friends and students. They randomly assigned the masks to be ‘friendly’ or ‘dangerous’ – and the expressions on the masks reflected this. The crows would alarm-call and dive-bomb the person wearing the dangerous mask …..”
There is just so much we human beings do not know about the life all around us – be it birds, mammals, reptiles, amphibians, insects. And think about fungi, microbes, bacteria. What is the life experience they have? We often think we know so much, but really? We do not – not even the experts. We need to remember that because everything we do affects everything around us. That does not mean we should stop all action, never take another step, never change the environment or a habitat in any way, it just means we should be thoughtful and measured about what we do. Think before we act. Weigh the benefits and the consequences.