Crafty crows

Adapted from Robert Whitcomb’s “Digital Diary,’’ in GoLocal24.com

Crows seem to be most excitable in November, at least in New England.

From crows.net:

“This {mid-November to mid-December} is the time when the big communal roosts are forming…arge number of crows will be gathering together in the evenings to spend the night in roosts that may contain anywhere from several hundred to tens of thousands of crows. Crows from a fairly large geographical area, covering a circle with perhaps a 20 mile or larger radius, will begin flying in the late afternoon or early evening towards a central roost location. It appears that in many cases, crows from various parts of the area served by the roost will stop at one or more staging area along the way where groups of crows gather and remain a short time before proceeding to the main roost. To use a human analogy, one might say that families of crows proceed to staging areas, where the clans gather, before flying on to gather as a tribe at the roost….”

“Although roosts may occur in a wide variety of surroundings, most commonly they are found in areas with large, mature trees not growing to densely, relatively near a water source such as a river or lake. In cities favorite areas seem to be cemeteries, college campuses, parks, malls, railroad yards, and old industrial areas.’’

No wonder they like our neighborhood so much!

They sure drop massive quantities of guano on our cars. But they sure do a great job removing the bodies of car-squashed squirrels from the roads.

Much has been made of recent research showing the high intelligence of crows and ravens, which look like crows but are larger. Parrots and the corvid family of crows, ravens and jays are considered the most intelligent birds.

They can, for example, remember individual humans, count and use tools. This naturally leads people, as they do with, particularly, their dogs and cats, to assign them human qualities. It’s as if we want to expand our human community to include other species as subsidiaries of us, the ruling class. But of course, whatever their range of intelligence, including emotional intelligence, they live in worlds far different from ours. Beware anthropomorphizing them.

To read more, please this link.

“Histories are more full of examples of the fidelity of dogs than of friends.’’

-- Alexander Pope