I saw some video once about intelligence tests on crows. In one experiment they had a tall but thin glass of water with some treat floating on the surface but it was too low for the crow to reach. So the crow started dropping rocks into the glass, causing the water level to rise, until it could reach the treat.
I was so impressed, I wanted to replicate that. I went to a park around the corner with some nuts to befriend some crows. My plan was to just feed them for a while so they would trust me. But after a few days I had flock of crows following me everywhere through the city. That was a bit too much.
Birds are wild. Found a chickadee fledgling in the road earlier this year and nursed him for a couple days before we found a legitimate rehab. Little guy would just hop out of his box, perch on your finger, and sing as loud as he could until you fed him scrambled eggs. Really got me thinking about how special birds are. We have a hummingbird that visits and he'll do stuff like fly into the garage if the door is open, hover and stare at you for 1-2 seconds, and then take off. It's happened so many times I've stopped being startled by the sudden brrrr noise you hear from their wings flapping (they're so fast they can show up in the blink of an eye).
The bumblebees do something similar (I've oddly nursed three different bees with sugar water—all just happened to be in my field of vision crawling around on the ground but not flying). Now you get a bumble or two per day checking in with a quick hover and bob kind of movement before shooting off into the distance.
Does anyone know of any research into this or books identifying behavior like this?
As a child we had a duck that would come nest in our garden for many years, it was really quite friendly, and would come up the patio doors every morning to beg for some food, didn't seem to be afraid of us. She would have her little ducklings follow her around the garden until they eventually went off to some lake not too far away.
This is more about beehaiviour research and playing with your balls, but the basic idea seems to be that even "small" brains do the same stuff the big brains do - like forming relationships, playing for fun, using tools, etc.
Crows are somewhat unique as an animal in that they've got the ability to pass information off to other members of the flock, and to continue passing information down through generations as necessary. The bird saved in this story, if it has offspring, will likely teach them that she is a safe and beloved human. At the very least, there's lots of research into this topic. I can't speak to the others, sorry.
> Crows are somewhat unique as an animal in that they've got the ability to pass information off to other members of the flock, and to continue passing information down through generations as necessary.
Not that unique. My grandfather was a forester, his favourite time passing was to whistle back bird's song, changing only a little bit at a time, turning it slowly into something totally different. The changed song was passed to other birds and offsprings no probs.
The result was quite hilarious, you went to the primeval woods and you could hear wild birds singing the Für Elise... I bet it freaked out ornithologists!
(My granddad died about 30 years ago, sadly the bird "dialect" has vanished since, but I still have some old tapes in the attic.)
Yes! This is a heartwarming story. But the opposite is true. If you happen to piss off a crow, your life will become very difficult. You might as well move towns.
Here in Australia, magpies do something similar but in a bad way. During nesting season they'll swoop you, remember your face, and keep targeting you. My daughter got attacked two weeks ago.
That makes me wonder: If you happened to piss them off, is there a way to appease them again sort of by redeeming yourself and thereby amend the diplomatic relationship?
And this short piece by the same director while looking for the other:
This short film documents six weeks in the life of a family of ravens in the Verdugo Mountains near Los Angeles. I first noticed two baby ravens who were very small and just out of the nest. This movie covers this family as their parents prepare them to go off and live life on their own.
The Ravens of Verdugo
Vance Crofoot
375 views Jul 30, 2021 LOS ANGELES
Crows reach fabulous levels of (animal) intelligence with a brain that is a fraction of the size of the brain of great apes. I wonder what progress has been made in studying the differences in organisation between the two.
I was so impressed, I wanted to replicate that. I went to a park around the corner with some nuts to befriend some crows. My plan was to just feed them for a while so they would trust me. But after a few days I had flock of crows following me everywhere through the city. That was a bit too much.
The bumblebees do something similar (I've oddly nursed three different bees with sugar water—all just happened to be in my field of vision crawling around on the ground but not flying). Now you get a bumble or two per day checking in with a quick hover and bob kind of movement before shooting off into the distance.
Does anyone know of any research into this or books identifying behavior like this?
Our cats were absolutely terrified of it.
This is more about beehaiviour research and playing with your balls, but the basic idea seems to be that even "small" brains do the same stuff the big brains do - like forming relationships, playing for fun, using tools, etc.
Not that unique. My grandfather was a forester, his favourite time passing was to whistle back bird's song, changing only a little bit at a time, turning it slowly into something totally different. The changed song was passed to other birds and offsprings no probs.
The result was quite hilarious, you went to the primeval woods and you could hear wild birds singing the Für Elise... I bet it freaked out ornithologists!
(My granddad died about 30 years ago, sadly the bird "dialect" has vanished since, but I still have some old tapes in the attic.)
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-08-30/magpie-swooping-seaso...
I feel like there's gotta be
https://urban.uw.edu/news/crows-hold-grudges-against-individ...
https://crowlingo.org/journal/marzluff-mask-experiments-expl...
What Ravens Do
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7RGmh_C3Kyg
And this short piece by the same director while looking for the other:
This short film documents six weeks in the life of a family of ravens in the Verdugo Mountains near Los Angeles. I first noticed two baby ravens who were very small and just out of the nest. This movie covers this family as their parents prepare them to go off and live life on their own.
The Ravens of Verdugo Vance Crofoot 375 views Jul 30, 2021 LOS ANGELES
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbW2LmWtQ7g
It was quite a sight, especially when she was wearing dark clothing.
A few centuries before people would have had her burned for being a witch.
So their brain can be equivalent to a much larger primate.
Here's the announcement post. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26998308
https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=johnnyApplePRNG
- and here -
https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=youtube.com&kind=stor...
(ps. There's a new episode of Mini Fantasy Theater I haven't seen yet, hurray! https://www.davidrevoy.com/tag/minifantasytheater)