Elaine Meinel Supkis
In National Geographic, there is an interview about a book about smart crows. I have had many, many birds of many kinds over the years. All of them pretty smart. Crows, roadrunners, blue jays and jackdaws, just for example, show many amusing signs of 'intelligence.' Sometimes, I think they are smarter than many humans.
John Roach
for National Geographic News
June 6, 2006
Crows make tools, play tricks on each other, and caw among kin in a dialect all their own.These are just some of the signs presented in a recent book that point to an unexpected similarity between the wise birds and humans.
"It's the same kind of consonance we find between bats that can fly and birds that can fly and insects that can fly," said Candace Savage, a nature writer based in Saskatoon, Canada.
"Species don't have to be related for there to have been some purpose, some reason, some evolutionary advantage for acquiring shared characteristics," she added.
Savage's book, Crows: Encounters with the Wise Guys of the Avian World (October 2005), explores the burgeoning field of crow research, which suggests that the birds share with humans several hallmarks of higher intelligence, including tool use and sophisticated social behavior.
Many years ago, in New Jersey, we lived in a Victorian house surrounded by very tall trees. One day, a fierce late spring thunderstorm shook the trees violently and out of his high crow's nest, a half naked baby crow fell to the yard below. My daughter picked up the baby bird as it floundered about. The parents watched all this closely and with greatest fear and interest.
I thought I could climb a ladder up to the nest and put him back in but it was much too high, crows love very high nests. So with the parents flying in circles around me, I took their baby inside. They stood on the window sill watching me dry off their baby and make a warm nest for him. Crows eat meat so I opened a can of cat food and began to feed him, always letting his parents watch me at work. I couldn't turn him loose for he couldn't fly, so I built an aviary that had a window to the outside with a perch for the parents to roost upon.
They came often and watched their baby grow up with us. Soon, baby was very tame and he rode on my shoulder or the children's heads as well. We would turn him loose and let him roam the house when we were watching. Early on, we taught the cats to leave him alone. Cats fear crows anyway so this was easy.
Our crow enjoyed the African finches who also had an aviary in the kitchen. He would try to have conversations with them but they were scared as he grew huge very quickly thanks to the cat food. He watched me take the can with the cute cat face on it, put it into the electric can opener and then I would push down on the handle and it would open the can.
One day, I heard the can opener running over and over again. I went into the kitchen. The crow had pushed a can with the cat picture into the can opener and was jumping on the handle to open it but he didn't figure out how to lock the can into the can opener so it didn't work. He hopped up and down, examining the can critically, shoved it around trying to adjust it to fit right and would then jump on the handle.
He was getting pretty angry about this. I started to laugh. He cawed angrily at me. I then engaged the can and viola! It opened. He was quite upset he couldn't do it.
His parents tracked my every movement whenever I left the house. I would take baby outside regularily to visit them. Finally, he grew up and I released him back into the wild. The parents stopped shadowing my movements around the neighborhood but he began to follow me around. When my daughter walked to school which was across the park, he would fly after her. When I shopped in the village, he shadowed me.
For several years, he did this. When he had babies himself, he taught them to follow me or my kids around the neighborhood. We felt like we were Odin and his crows.
But I find all birds are 'smart' in various ways! I have made roadrunners my pets in Tucson. This is because I would clean the swimming pool filter and it would have snakes and lizards as well as fat bugs in it and the road runners would lurk nearby to eat the things I dumped. So I began to play with these drowned creatures and the roadrunners loved this. In the end, they would stand on the diving board and I would swim around with a snake or lizard in my hand and then come plunging out of the water to leave it on the board, they would eat is and then hop up and down as I splashed them.
They followed me about the desert when I practiced cross country racing. And they waited at my bus stop in order to run in front of me to the swimming pool. They nested in the saguaro in front of my bedroom window and when they wanted me to come out, they would tap on my window with their beaks.
My godmother, a published bird expert in the 19th century, taught wild blue jays to have tea with her. She put peanuts under tea cups and they would flip them over to eat the nuts. They perched on the rims of the cups to drink with her.
Actually, she taught me a lot about birds. She thought all birds were fabulous creatures worthy of study and protection. I agree. Whole heartedly. I wish we had more birds. I really miss them especially now, as caterpillars decimate my entire forest.
I noticed that several crows will gang up on a hawk and squawk and fuss at it and even attack it in the air and eventually chase the Hawk away.
Why? To protech their young or to chase off the competition?
Posted by: Eddie Hunter | June 08, 2006 at 04:58 AM
Chickadees will swarm hawks and owls! All smaller birds swarm to attack all larger birds. This is because large birds tend to fly in groups of less than four while small birds like to fly in groups of dozens to thousands.
Chris and I once watched a crow/hawk battle. The local hawk family was teaching four young how to fly. So there were six of them. One young hawk flew towards a flock of crows who swarmed him. As he struggled to escape, mom and dad and all the siblings swooped down upon the crows who flew frantically to the big oak tree in the middle of the field.
All but on crow who was merrily chasing the original hawk, suddenly, he found himself surrounded by the entire family of hawks! With a loud croak of surprise, he dove to our tent complex and hid in the branches of the ashe tree which grew over our patio outside.
The hawks circled around for half an hour just to irritate the crows who didn't bother them for several weeks.
Posted by: Elaine Meinel Supkis | June 08, 2006 at 08:13 AM
That is interesting.
They facinate me.
And so do the hummingbirds you wrote about. Usually, here in Georgia, in early July the hummingbirds make their return trip from wherever they have been for the cold months.
Posted by: Eddie Hunter | June 08, 2006 at 12:42 PM
Yes, they are the last to come up here and the first to go.
Posted by: Elaine Meinel Supkis | June 08, 2006 at 05:56 PM
i went to the same school as patrick. i remeber those girls from my school who wrote in. they were white trash...i always felt so bad for them.
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