Thread by @corvidresearch

I feel like I haven’t tweeted about, ya know, actual crows or crow related content in some time. So how about we learn about #crows for a minute?

Did you knows crows can keep track of small quantities AND they can recognize when quantities are unequal? What’s more is that it seems their brains do this in the same ways our do...via individual neurons corvidresearch.blog/2015/06/11/cou…

When I say they can keep track of small quantities what I mean is if you hide 3 treats under 10 cups and mix em up, jackdaws will stop turning boxes over once they’ve found three treats...at least according to a 1950 study. Parrots are another bird that seem to do this.

Since they have an eye (and brain!) for keeping track of quantities it may come as no surprise that they don’t take kindly to getting a raw deal.

Researchers trained captive crows and ravens to exchange tokens for treats. If they saw their neighbor getting a better treat for the same task (or without having to work at all) they’d quit. If only humans could so easily stick it to The Man. scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&…

But they can play the roll of The Man just as well. Strongly bonded ravens will interrupt the efforts of others to strike up a relationship. By suppressing others from forming strong bonds, a pair has a better chance of maintaining their position on top corvidresearch.blog/2014/11/02/the…

Since we’ve been on a theme of cognition and my bus commute is coming to an end, let’s round things out with crows and roads. Carrion crows (among other birds) seem to learn the local speed limit and adjust their flight response accordingly. rsbl.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/9/5/20…

Meaning, in higher speed limit areas they initiate their departure earlier as compared to their departure times in lower speed limit areas.

And some birds really take this to the extreme. I’ll never forget the story of a raven who was scavenging on a jackrabbit in the road. As the driver approached he assumed the raven would hop away before it was too late.

To his horror though, the raven stayed put in the road. At his high speed (he was on a highway) the driver knew he couldn’t safely swerve and had no choice but to hit the raven.

As he looked in his rear view mirror, prepared for the bloody mass of black feathers, he was shocked to see the raven, very much alive and happily munching the rabbit. He pulled over to watch in disbelief.

Rather than flee as the cars approached, the raven just ducked. Whether that was the smart move or not I’ll leave to you.