Clever Crows
From time to time we see the clever antics of birds and animals featured on television programmes. These birds and animals have usually been trained to do these clever, sometimes cute tricks.
In their natural state birds can be even smarter. The humble crow has long been known here in Australia as being very cunning, often stealing eggs from domestic fowl sheds, much to the annoyance of the owners of the home chooks.
A report from The Times Online service states these interesting things about crows and their cleverness:
CAW! THAT’S SMART
Crows have been seen stealing rubber from windscreen wipers to line their nests Some drop nuts and clams on to hard surfaces to break their shells Others place nuts in front of the tyres of stopped vehicles and wait for the cars to run them over and crack the shells Some use leaves as a tool to extract insects from trees
Tuesday July 4th, 2006 | Categories: Ravens and Crows
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October 13th, 2006 at 6:40 pm
[…] Clever crows […]
January 19th, 2007 at 1:47 pm
We watched a crow today land on our mailbox (faux wooden stump) and pull out a letter from amoungst a pile and fly off with it. The envelope was white with a stamp and a yellow address change sticker but nothing out of the ordinary.
The crow flew next door holding the envelope and then flew to the telephone pole where it started to attempt to “open it?” rip it. It lost it’s grip and the letter fell to the ground.
Turns out it was junk mail anyway!
January 20th, 2007 at 10:47 am
What an amusing incident to observe. I wonder if we can train these birds to remove only the junk mail from our letter boxes? There could be quite a niche market for these specially trained junk interceptors.
June 4th, 2007 at 2:55 am
Trevor,
I’ve been to Australia four times. I was just discussing how beautiful it was to see cockatiels flying about in flocks in the wild. I had brought up the fact that Australian crows seem to be much louder than their American counterparts. Dont know if that was just the sound dynamics of the area I was in (Kings Cross) of if this held true for all of them. I began looking for pics of of the black & white colored crows I saw while there but dont seem to be able to locate any online. Do you have any on your site or could you mail me a pic or two.
Cheers
Rick Hancock
Seattle, USA
June 20th, 2007 at 2:48 pm
Hi there Rick.
Welcome to my blog - sorry about the delay in replying.
Not sure about the sound dynamics of crows and ravens in Australia - they all seem loud to me. I haven’t experienced birding in America (yet) so I can’t make comparisons. They are certainly louder than the Common Crow and the House Crow of Asia (in Thailand and Nepal).
There are no black and white crows or ravens in Australia. I think you must be referring to one of the following species: Pied Currawong, Grey Currawong, White Winged Chough or even perhaps the Australian Magpie.
Check out the photos on my photo gallery here:
http://gallery.hampel.com.au/
March 30th, 2008 at 1:03 am
Crow behavior in the mountains of Virginia ….. flying off with full bars of Irish Spring soap that had been placed around spring plantings as a deer repellent. Repelled the deer but attracted crows! (And this soap has such a strong perfume! How could crows possible eat it?)
April 15th, 2008 at 12:01 pm
How bizarre!
Then again, I am constantly amazed at stories like this one - birds (and animals) do some really strange things at times.
They haven’t set up a soap store somewhere have they?
Seriously though, there must be something in the perfume or the scent or even the shape that attracts them. Have you actually seen them eating it?