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.
Crows are natures version of the flock camera network. I made the mistake of regularly throwing a cup of premium bird seed into the yard. Once they locked onto this activity I got in trouble for stopping. They would do as you describe. I'd see them standing on top of my truck as I walk out of the grocery store.
The explanation given by scientists is that chimpanzees need this type of memory to keep a clear mental map of their surroundings while climbing. Still, spectacular.
haha :D but consider they were not just on some rooftop nearby. They were quite close. I wouldn't mind per se but the social cost... I think it was obvious to everyone in the streets that these birds were following me. I didn't want to be the bird guy.
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?
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.)
This is an absolutely beautiful story! My mother always whistles back at the birds, but mostly just tries to imitate their songs. But she used to play "Für Elise" on the piano when I was a child :)
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?
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.
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
Whenever I see a story about how clever crows are, I'm reminded of that guy who gave the TED talk about crows collecting rubbish after sporting events and picking up coins in return for food. Turned out he made it all up.
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.
> Crows reach fabulous levels of (animal) intelligence with a brain that is a fraction of the size of the brain of great apes.
Crows have a higher raw brain-to-body mass ratio (about 2.7% for ravens) compared to adult humans (about 1.9%), so not exactly surprising they are smart.
While interesting, are the brain cells smaller, scaled down with body size? If not, it's not entirely indicative of an increased brain size compared to humans.
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.
Crows are natures version of the flock camera network. I made the mistake of regularly throwing a cup of premium bird seed into the yard. Once they locked onto this activity I got in trouble for stopping. They would do as you describe. I'd see them standing on top of my truck as I walk out of the grocery store.
Speaking of animal intelligence: I have always been impressed by the short-term memory of chimpanzees, which outperforms that of humans:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VM5QS_adrIQ
The explanation given by scientists is that chimpanzees need this type of memory to keep a clear mental map of their surroundings while climbing. Still, spectacular.
That’s an Aesop’s fable (the Crow and the Pitcher).
https://read.gov/aesop/012.html
The crow and rocks experiment was a staple “moral story” when I was a child in India. Interesting that someone actually validated the story!
This a classic story from Aesop's Fables. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Crow_and_the_Pitcher It's been passed down for a few thousand years.
Seems the setup for one of those “the crows have eyes” movies.
https://www.thecrowshaveeyes.com/
One of my favourites as well. Here it is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2IBayVsbz8
I saw that video of the experiment with the thin glass as well, it's been years since then but I still tell people about it. Crows are awesome!
My desire to befriend some crows is only increased by this comment.
haha :D but consider they were not just on some rooftop nearby. They were quite close. I wouldn't mind per se but the social cost... I think it was obvious to everyone in the streets that these birds were following me. I didn't want to be the bird guy.
I really tried to befriend some crows but in the end I only got a pigeon ... and in-between I had some really destructive ravens.
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?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2sqnxlzLakU
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.
You will like reading Niko Tinbergen's Curious Naturalists
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.)
This is an absolutely beautiful story! My mother always whistles back at the birds, but mostly just tries to imitate their songs. But she used to play "Für Elise" on the piano when I was a child :)
Please digitize and post some of these recordings!
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.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-08-30/magpie-swooping-seaso...
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?
I feel like there's gotta be
Have a friend, in a mask, kidnap one of the crows. Then you appear, and set it free, and give it cookies. (And your friend stops using the mask.)
This makes the assumption that crows can identify people only by the face. It's quite likely they could recognise something else.
That is not so much an assumption as a conclusion, backed up by research:
https://urban.uw.edu/news/crows-hold-grudges-against-individ...
https://crowlingo.org/journal/marzluff-mask-experiments-expl...
So we need to research if we can apologize to crows.
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.
Our cats were absolutely terrified of it.
My ex mother in law bonded with a crow. She had it spending time on her shoulder whenever she was spending time in her garden.
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.
Somehow, I came across this just yesterday:
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
Whenever I see a story about how clever crows are, I'm reminded of that guy who gave the TED talk about crows collecting rubbish after sporting events and picking up coins in return for food. Turned out he made it all up.
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.
Bird brains are on 2nm process nodes while mammals are 32nm chips
Lol
They apparently evolved intelligence separately from mammals: https://www.wired.com/story/intelligence-evolved-at-least-tw...
Well, it has been shown that birds have twice the density of neurons to mammals, and their brain is larger as a proportion of body mass: https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1517131113
So their brain can be equivalent to a much larger primate.
> Crows reach fabulous levels of (animal) intelligence with a brain that is a fraction of the size of the brain of great apes.
Crows have a higher raw brain-to-body mass ratio (about 2.7% for ravens) compared to adult humans (about 1.9%), so not exactly surprising they are smart.
While interesting, are the brain cells smaller, scaled down with body size? If not, it's not entirely indicative of an increased brain size compared to humans.
I appreciate your AI (Avian Intelligence) contribution to HN.
LOL, man, you made my day! Thank you!
(ps. There's a new episode of Mini Fantasy Theater I haven't seen yet, hurray! https://www.davidrevoy.com/tag/minifantasytheater)
Obligatory "Rick & Morty did it first"
This is special. Thanks for sharing. Warmed my heart.
I submit this days ago, not sure why it says I submit it 5 hours ago ... but sure ... change my submission time like it's completely meaningless.
It would have been in the 2nd chance pool. https://news.ycombinator.com/pool
Here's the announcement post. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26998308
It's the Second-Chance Pool feature. HN shows the original submission time on some other pages. Such as here -
https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=johnnyApplePRNG
- and here -
https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=youtube.com&kind=stor...