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Crows pass on information to their friends


Still Waters

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Researchers at a Scottish university have found that crows are far more social than previously thought - and could be using their friendships to pass on information.

St Andrews University researchers fitted more than 40 New Caledonian crows with radio tags - and found they all spent much more time socialising with other, unrelated, crows than with their own families.

The crows, from New Caledonia, a remote island in the South Pacific, are renowned for their ability to use tools to get food.

http://www.dailymail...ps-friends.html

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It breaks my heart to see birds with man-made stuff attached to them. The first photo shows a wild bird with rings on both legs and a large tag and a 4" aerial attached to it's back ........ I wonder why these people think they have the right to do that?

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We are going to have to redefine what intelligence is in animals. They are making us look like fools.

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I can say that crows definitely are transmitting to others information by their calls (caws) as I leave for work every day, they are cawing in the field across the street from my home. They seem to be following the one crow with the loud mouth but as to what they are doing or what they have found, I haven't had the time to look yet.

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Crows are so smart. I had a group of them here at my house in a aerial fight with a hawk. The crows kept calling until another group came over from across the highway to help run the hawk off.

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There you go! Many people know animals are intelligent and swap information between themselves ...... we don't need stupid scientists wasting good money to tell us that.

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Crows are very intelligent. They can figure out Archimdes principle. There are probably many people who can't, and of course human juveniles. Tell me again what gives us the right to treat non-human animals as property again?

I know, I know, Might equals right.

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these guys do studies to confirm this? Its pretty obvious when you hear them cawing to each other from tree to tree that they're "passing information" and they certainly managed to rouse a whole murder of crows (no pun intended) to systematically dive bomb at my dog while he was killing one of them (sorry if I've stated this over and over, but it was a joyous day for me).

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Researchers at a Scottish university have found that crows are far more social than previously thought - and could be using their friendships to pass on information.

St Andrews University researchers fitted more than 40 New Caledonian crows with radio tags - and found they all spent much more time socialising with other, unrelated, crows than with their own families.

The crows, from New Caledonia, a remote island in the South Pacific, are renowned for their ability to use tools to get food.

http://www.dailymail...ps-friends.html

And New Caledonian crows are not that special concerning socializing and corvid intelligence: European rooks are a smart as any of them.

What is truelly amazing is that scientists travel to a remote corner of the world, but don't bother to look in their backyard (well, except a few of them).

Try YouTube, and find out for yourself.

.

Edited by Abramelin
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And New Caledonian crows are not that special concerning socializing and corvid intelligence: European rooks are a smart as any of them.

What is truelly amazing is that scientists travel to a remote corner of the world, but don't bother to look in their backyard (well, except a few of them).

Try YouTube, and find out for yourself.

.

i think all the crows are in MY backyard!

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Crows are very intelligent. They can figure out Archimdes principle. There are probably many people who can't, and of course human juveniles. Tell me again what gives us the right to treat non-human animals as property again?

I know, I know, Might equals right.

I'd like to see one chimp do that as fast as that rook.

Or this:

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duh.. so do ants, and bees. Just because we don't speak bird... is meaningless.

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We have ravens where I live. I've seen them on many occasions do surprising things. Like pick up a biscuit off the ground, then walk it over to a puddle and dunk it in to soften it up then eat it.

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There you go! Many people know animals are intelligent and swap information between themselves ...... we don't need stupid scientists wasting good money to tell us that.

If you don't do the science then how will you know if they are doing more than just guarding territory or looking for mates. If you don't test out theory then we might as well go back and believe mice are spontaneous from straw and cloth.

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Crows are also capable of coordinating an attack or a hunt. I saw a murder of crows split into two groups in order to attack a duck's nest. One group pecked at the mother to force her away from the nest, and continued to harass her to keep her away, while the other group attacked the eggs. They are notorious for attacking ducklings, chicks...etc

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If you don't do the science then how will you know if they are doing more than just guarding territory or looking for mates. If you don't test out theory then we might as well go back and believe mice are spontaneous from straw and cloth.

Why do we need to know either way?

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crows ...and magpies..magpies "talk" is something from the jurassic movies, they give me chills when passing them as they seem to study you as you go by... :cry:

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crows ...and magpies..magpies "talk" is something from the jurassic movies, they give me chills when passing them as they seem to study you as you go by... :cry:

I don't know where you live, MistyDawn, but here in Europe we also have Jackdaws, a small kind of crow.

They are very gregarious birds, and early in the morning you can hear dozens of them chatter with eachother.

They don't make that typical crow 'caw' sound, but they produce a great variety of sounds that would make you swear they were actually talking and using words....

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I don't know where you live, MistyDawn, but here in Europe we also have Jackdaws, a small kind of crow.

They are very gregarious birds, and early in the morning you can hear dozens of them chatter with eachother.

They don't make that typical crow 'caw' sound, but they produce a great variety of sounds that would make you swear they were actually talking and using words....

I have rooks, crows, jackdaws and magpies in my garden ....... they're all the same family. I think magpies are the creepiest because they really do seem to have their own language with many, many 'words' ........ and they 'talk' to each other at great length. I love the jackdaws because they seem to pair for life and fly or sit around in pairs, grooming each other and 'talking' quietly.

I think it's sad that these days so many people don't just sit and observe the world around them. No one seems to sit unless it's in front of screen of some sort. People seem to always have to be doing something ......... just sitting and observing and thinking is very, very valuable.

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crows ...and magpies..magpies "talk" is something from the jurassic movies, they give me chills when passing them as they seem to study you as you go by... :cry:

You wouldn't like the Australian magpie then. They swoop people if they get too close to the nesting area.

As this tourist found out:

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I have rooks, crows, jackdaws and magpies in my garden ....... they're all the same family. I think magpies are the creepiest because they really do seem to have their own language with many, many 'words' ........ and they 'talk' to each other at great length. I love the jackdaws because they seem to pair for life and fly or sit around in pairs, grooming each other and 'talking' quietly.

I think it's sad that these days so many people don't just sit and observe the world around them. No one seems to sit unless it's in front of screen of some sort. People seem to always have to be doing something ......... just sitting and observing and thinking is very, very valuable.

I have observed the weirdest things done by corvids, and all I did was just sit or lay still and wait. Either on a bench in a city-park, or at the edge of a field in a forest, on dunes, or in the middle of a noisy city with lots of traffic, an so on.

Here in the Netherlands the jackdaws are almost as tame as chickens, but they never fail to keep an eye on you.

I remember I once was lying on some grassy hillock, watching a large group of jackdaws chattering on the ground some 90 feet away. After a few minutes they became a lot quieter and I saw two jackdaws splitting away from the group ; one flew to the left and one to he right. Both flew in a large semi-circle around the hillock I was on. When I looked up and behind me, they were both hovering above the hillock, their eyes focussed on me. Then I stood up, curious about what would happen: the two jackdaws then flew staright back down the hillock to the group, gave some calls, and the whole group rose up and left.

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Crows are also capable of coordinating an attack or a hunt. I saw a murder of crows split into two groups in order to attack a duck's nest. One group pecked at the mother to force her away from the nest, and continued to harass her to keep her away, while the other group attacked the eggs. They are notorious for attacking ducklings, chicks...etc

They are indeed capable of a coordinated attack and hunt.

Crows are one of the few animals not only not afraid of fire, but even using it.

I was once out in the country side. I was resting against a tree after riding my bike for a couple of hours, eating a sandwich, drinking some water, and watching a farmer in the distance who was burning a heap of twigs, leafs and branches.

To the right, some 40 meters away from the farmer, was a bush with some crows circling above it and walking around it, apparently looking for something hiding inside that bush. After a few minutes I saw what they were after: a young ring dove (or wood pigeon, what's the name?).

A lot of cawing was going on, but the bush was too dense for the crows to get to the pigeon.

Then one crow flew to the heap of burning twigs as soon as the farmer had left, picked up a burning ember, and flew straght back to the bush where the pigeon was still hiding.

Without hesitation the crow went as far inside the bush as was possible, dropped the burning ember, and flew off. After a few minutes the bush was on fire, but it was more smoke than fire.

Eventually the pigeon couldn't hold out any longer, and fled from the bush, at which moment all the crows dived down on him, and quickly killed it by pecking it to death.

I think my lower jaw was somewhere on the ground after I watched this spectacle taking place in front of my eyes...

.

Edited by Abramelin
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Of course some will say that that's why they don't like crows: they kill and eat those lovely songbirds and pigeons (and rabbits and whatever they can kill; they are not just carrion eaters), and they would be willing to shoot the crows off or have someone else do it for them.

But in the evening they sit on their fat behinds watching some documentary with David Attenborough about lions, leopards or cheetahs hunting and killing prey.

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And for those who don't believe corvids are not scared of fire (and smoke), read these old posts of mine (and the rest of that thread):

http://www.unexplain...3

http://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=218233entry4126752

.

Edited by Abramelin
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They are indeed capable of a coordinated attack and hunt.

Crows are one of the few animals not only not afraid of fire, but even using it.

I was once out in the country side. I was resting against a tree after riding my bike for a couple of hours, eating a sandwich, drinking some water, and watching a farmer in the distance who was burning a heap of twigs, leafs and branches.

To the right, some 40 meters away from the farmer, was a bush with some crows circling above it and walking around it, apparently looking for something hiding inside that bush. After a few minutes I saw what they were after: a young ring dove (or wood pigeon, what's the name?).

A lot of cawing was going on, but the bush was too dense for the crows to get to the pigeon.

Then one crow flew to the heap of burning twigs as soon as the farmer had left, picked up a burning ember, and flew straght back to the bush where the pigeon was still hiding.

Without hesitation the crow went as far inside the bush as was possible, dropped the burning ember, and flew off. After a few minutes the bush was on fire, but it was more smoke than fire.

Eventually the pigeon couldn't hold out any longer, and fled from the bush, at which moment all the crows dived down on him, and quickly killed it by pecking it to death.

I think my lower jaw was somewhere on the ground after I watched this spectacle taking place in front of my eyes...

.

This is amazing! I never witnessed anything similar, but I've seen them chasing birds much bigger than them : canada geese, herons, even hawks. The woods and waters attract a lot of wild fowl, and the young easily fall prey to the crows. Every year at spring we try to count the little ducklings, few make it into the summer. There used to be a large colony of magpies but they were replaced by a larger murder of ravens. Unfortunately, they love to settle on the branches of the trees surrounding the garden, and the din of their cawing can be maddening; all song birds are hushed while the ravens are doing their bit of song! Without natural predators, their numbers were increasing, however, this year there are so few around. I do not know why their numbers decreased, no one hunted or shot at them. On the positive side, there are more song birds around. I was told that a person has but one shot at shooting at them, they are capable of recognizing & identifying that person as a 'danger' and will fly away if s/he appears with even a broomstick . As I never shot a bird, I'm not sure about that, it's just what I was told.

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