There's a family of crows that hangs around my neighborhood. This one on my
back fence is the closest I've been to one of them in 8 years - and wouldn't
you know it, he's camera shy.

--
Paddy's pig
-----------------

To reply it's bell not bull

"Padraig" wrote in message
...
There's a family of crows that hangs around my neighborhood. This one on
my back fence is the closest I've been to one of them in 8 years - and
wouldn't you know it, he's camera shy.

;-) Crows are apparently much shyer than I'd assumed they'd be. I've been
feeding several of them for a couple of years now (peanuts & walnuts tossed
out onto my front walk, drive, or lawn), and only a couple of them are now
brave enough to come within about 15 feet of me. But they sure come
swooping over as soon as they realize something's on offer, & sit up in the
trees or on the wires until they figure it's "safe" enough to come down & to
get their treats. Then they often do a side-step feinting sort of deal till
they get to the goodies. And if a squirrel shows up, they never try to
block the squirrel - always jump up into the air & avoid the squirrel
instead. Are fun(ny) to watch.

Cathy

"Cathy F." wrote in message
...

;-) Crows are apparently much shyer than I'd assumed they'd be. I've
been feeding several of them for a couple of years now (peanuts & walnuts
tossed out onto my front walk, drive, or lawn), and only a couple of them
are now brave enough to come within about 15 feet of me. But they sure
come swooping over as soon as they realize something's on offer, & sit up
in the trees or on the wires until they figure it's "safe" enough to come
down & to get their treats. Then they often do a side-step feinting sort
of deal till they get to the goodies. And if a squirrel shows up, they
never try to block the squirrel - always jump up into the air & avoid the
squirrel instead. Are fun(ny) to watch.


They are reputed to be extremely intelligent. I'm not sure I buy that idea.
If they were that smart they ought to be able to figure out the difference
when somebody's a threat or if somebody's a friend.

There was a weird story I heard when I was a kid. One of my chums told me
that if you raided a nest and caught a young crow they could be taught to
speak just like a parrot only better and much faster --- but you had to slit
the tongue lengthwise first.

I don't know how stories like that start but I heard it over and over again
from a lot of people so it wasn't something he made up. I honestly doubt
that anybody ever tried it. And if they DID - why should slitting the
tongue enable them to speak better than a non-cut tongue?

Pretty gory. If I were a crow and somebody slit my tongue I'd be smart
enough to get away at the first chance.

Pat

"Padraig" wrote in message
...
"Cathy F." wrote in message
...

;-) Crows are apparently much shyer than I'd assumed they'd be. I've
been feeding several of them for a couple of years now (peanuts & walnuts
tossed out onto my front walk, drive, or lawn), and only a couple of them
are now brave enough to come within about 15 feet of me. But they sure
come swooping over as soon as they realize something's on offer, & sit up
in the trees or on the wires until they figure it's "safe" enough to come
down & to get their treats. Then they often do a side-step feinting sort
of deal till they get to the goodies. And if a squirrel shows up, they
never try to block the squirrel - always jump up into the air & avoid the
squirrel instead. Are fun(ny) to watch.


They are reputed to be extremely intelligent. I'm not sure I buy that
idea. If they were that smart they ought to be able to figure out the
difference when somebody's a threat or if somebody's a friend.

Yep, I've heard & read enough accounts over the last 15 years or so that I
think they're quite intelligent.

1 - Crows who figured out that cars can crack nuts for them:
http://www.pbs.org/lifeofbirds/brain/

2 - Then there's Betty the Crow:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/science...rt-crows_x.htm

3 - Then there were the crows that a grad student observed (I don't have the
cite for this anymore):she observed a crow pick up a large disposable coffee
cup that was sitting in the road at the bottom of a hill. The crow picked
it up, went to the top of the hill, got into the cup, & rolled down. Some
fellow crows noticed & went over to join in, & they took turns rolling down
the hill in the cup. Apparently just for fun - playing.

4 - Then there's the story that I heard Jean Craighead George (children's
author - "Julie of the Wolves") tell at an education workshop:

When her daughter was little, they had a semi-pet crow, Crowbar; he'd been
injured & they'd nursed him to health. He continued to hang around after he
was fine - lived out in their apple tree, & would fly in through open
kitchen window at breakfast time in nice weather & sit on the back of a
chair, then go back outside for the day.

One morning her daughter was outside playing in the sandbox & came inside to
complain that Crowbar was driving her nuts, because he kept grabbing at the
little aluminum pie tins she had in the sandbox, & wouldn't leave her alone.
Jean C-G. told her daughter to go play on the slide instead since birds
can't slide, because of the texture of their feet. She then watched out eh
window - yes, daughter was sliding down the slide.

Crowbar flew to the top of the slide & stepped onto the metal part, but of
course he couldn't slide down. He looked around from up there, flew over to
the sandbox & puicked up an aluminum pie tin, put it on top of the slide,
hopped in, & slid down. :-)

There was a weird story I heard when I was a kid. One of my chums told me
that if you raided a nest and caught a young crow they could be taught to
speak just like a parrot only better and much faster --- but you had to
slit the tongue lengthwise first.

I don't know how stories like that start but I heard it over and over
again from a lot of people so it wasn't something he made up. I honestly
doubt that anybody ever tried it. And if they DID - why should slitting
the tongue enable them to speak better than a non-cut tongue?

Pretty gory. If I were a crow and somebody slit my tongue I'd be smart
enough to get away at the first chance.

This I've never heard, but agreed - gory.

Cathy


Pat

In article ,
"Padraig" wrote:

"Cathy F." wrote in message
...

;-) Crows are apparently much shyer than I'd assumed they'd be. I've
been feeding several of them for a couple of years now (peanuts & walnuts
tossed out onto my front walk, drive, or lawn), and only a couple of them
are now brave enough to come within about 15 feet of me. But they sure
come swooping over as soon as they realize something's on offer, & sit up
in the trees or on the wires until they figure it's "safe" enough to come
down & to get their treats. Then they often do a side-step feinting sort
of deal till they get to the goodies. And if a squirrel shows up, they
never try to block the squirrel - always jump up into the air & avoid the
squirrel instead. Are fun(ny) to watch.


They are reputed to be extremely intelligent. I'm not sure I buy that idea.
If they were that smart they ought to be able to figure out the difference
when somebody's a threat or if somebody's a friend.

There was a weird story I heard when I was a kid. One of my chums told me
that if you raided a nest and caught a young crow they could be taught to
speak just like a parrot only better and much faster --- but you had to slit
the tongue lengthwise first.

I don't know how stories like that start but I heard it over and over again
from a lot of people so it wasn't something he made up. I honestly doubt
that anybody ever tried it. And if they DID - why should slitting the
tongue enable them to speak better than a non-cut tongue?

Pretty gory. If I were a crow and somebody slit my tongue I'd be smart
enough to get away at the first chance.

I heard that story a million times growing up. So did my friend Billy.
He was one of the kids in my crowd who made dreams a reality (I was
another, but that's another story).

Billy climbed a monster pine tree about fifty feet up to rob a crow's
nest. The chick grew furiously and was very attached to Billy.
Everyone kept telling him to cut the bird's tongue, but Billy was smart
and didn't fall for old wive's tales.

That bird was an absolute riot. It talked, for sure. Mostly stuff that
a sailor wouldn't repeat.

But the most fun thing about that crow was her habit of anting whenever
she had the slightest inclination. She would ant with ants all day long
if they were available. The night we saw her ant with fire was magical.
It was around a campfire in a senescent apple grove. The bird had never
seen a fire before. She was intensely curious about it, and gradually
got closer and closer (in that jerky, skeptical incremental way that
crows are famous for) to the embers of the fire. To everyone's
amazement, she picked up a small glowing ember that popped out of the
fire and, holding it gingerly at the very tip of her beak, rubbed the
damn thing vigorously around under her wings, rolling her head, cackling
and muttering and acting quite satisfied with herself. Those of us who
had seen her anting with ants and had researched the behavior via
wildlife encyclopedias at the local library were not entirely taken
aback. We were delighted to leave those witnesses entirely astonished,
just so.

Billy freed the bird in a remote spot miles from his house after she
tried to burn the house down. Quite by accident, actually. She had a
habit of stealing coins and paper clips and kitchen matches and such.
Nobody knew where she hid them until a nasty fire erupted in the laundry
room. Billy's father's forensics revealed a large cache of scorched
trinkets horded behind the gas water heater, and presumably stolen
matches taking fire was the cause of the blaze. Luckily, the rest of
the house was spared other than a bit of smoke damage.

We missed that bird for a long, long time.