By Jill Riddell
I’m curious, because Tim’s way out on a limb on this one, sitting almost alone in his appreciation of crows. They’re right up there with pigeons as one of the most loathed birds in America.
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I can’t predict what animal fad will next capture the fancy of American shoppers, but I can tell you it won’t be crows. My conversations with other friends about their sense of crows elicited responses quite different from Tim’s. All had stories about some raucous specimen that woke them up every morning by squawking outside the window.
But here’s the rub–crows are also the most intelligent bird. Relative to body size, the mass and density of a crow brain is greater than that of any other bird and comparable to that of dolphins and humans. Crows not only use but make tools. Biologists view the ability to craft tools with great respect, even if it doesn’t improve an animal’s marketability in gift shops. According to a report in the January 20, 1996, Science News, crows strip the leaves and other rough points off twigs to make hooks they use to find bugs under bark and leaves. It’s also well-known that crows use automobiles as tools, setting down walnuts and clams on paved roads and waiting for cars to smash them open. (However, there’s no evidence that crows manufacture cars for this purpose.)
While some crows still live, nest, and roost in rural areas, some of the biggest winter roosts have recently appeared in cities: Hagerstown, Pennsylvania; Alexandria, Virginia; and Yuba City, California, boast some of the larger roosts. Crows have to give up some corn when they go urban, but one advantage to boldly moving into cities is that they don’t get shot at or poisoned. And as a consolation prize there’s more garbage.
