[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RPHxA8-aaE[/youtube]
I found this delightful video about crows adapting to an urban environment and even learning to use pedestrian crossings — for their own purposes.
I remember recently telling a friend about how crows are actually very intelligent, and here’s an excellent example.
6 comments
There’s some (as the title says) amazing examples of the intelligence of crows in this TED talk:
Joshua Klein: The amazing intelligence of crows
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/joshua_klein_on_the_intelligence_of_crows.html
A few years ago a neighbour, who was quite rotund, had a cat, which was just plain FAT!
They both liked to take their leisure on the patio of a hot summer’s evening, the cat lolling on the cool stones on the walk.
The neighbour across the street fed a crow, which became quite tame, and it would visit house to house looking for treats.
It would land near the cat, and the cat would try and chase it, the crow hopping away faster than the cat was prepared to move, being very corpulent.
The crow KNEW the cat was fat!
Finally, the cat would try to ignore the crow, but it’s tail would twitch, attacting the crow’s attention.
The crow would sidle up to the cat, and pull it’s tail, then jump back as the cat started to rise.
This went on for 15 minutes, the cat panting in the heat.
Finally the cat just let the crow pull his tail until the cat gave up and went under a bush, carefully tucking his tail in.
We just killed ouselves laughing, no doubt the real reason the cat moved.
This went on evening after evening, and was part of the entertainment.
But, did the other birds give the CROW a hard time when near their nests!
Even animals know not to jay walk like our proud montrealers who find pride in being dumber than this crow.
great post. i love crows.
samir, if you think montrealers are bad jaywalkers then you should check out Mumbai or Tokyo.
or the world’s fastest changing pedestrian traffic light:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snFY5ddoNCc
dunno. i thought it was pretty funny.
Cdnlococo: you should write a book! I love your comments.
@ Samir: I would feel incredibly dumb if I were to not cross a street, when there was no oncoming traffic, because an inanimate object told me not to. I’ve lived in many cities where people won’t budge from the curb; even though there isn’t a car in sight; because a machine set on a timer tells them not to.
That to me is the epitome of dumb.
“I’ve lived in many cities where people won’t budge from the curb; even though there isn’t a car in sight; because a machine set on a timer tells them not to.
That to me is the epitome of dumb.”
To me too.
Before I moved to Canada I’d heard that this described Canadians generally (as the order-loving quasi-Swiss-Germans of North America or something), but when I got to Montreal I realized they must’ve been talking about Toronto.
;-)