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Kaeli Swift, Ph.D. Profile picture
Kaeli Swift, Ph.D.
@corvidresearch
PostDoc-Tinian monarch @uw_sefs | PhD crow death behaviors | Wed’s #CrowOrNo | Actually just three crows in a trench coat | she/her
Sep 13, 2018 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Omg apparently he @‘d tons of folks that RT’d this, to play armchair psychiatrist and double down on it being a raven. WHAT A WANKER 🤣🤣🤣
Sep 12, 2018 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
Hey guess what? It’s the best day of the week! It’s #CrowOrNo day! Today’s challenge is brought to you by @Sciwhat. So what kind of a peeping Tom do they have here? A #CrowOrNo? Answer at 5:30 PST! Good luck!
Sep 11, 2018 • 9 tweets • 3 min read
Here’s the thing about red squirrels...I dig their whole vibe. Here’s a thread of me just being delighted about them. An explanation of their cache sites or middens. FYI I totally blanked on the word “scales” (you can tell by the long pause) but I meant to say scales not leaves.
Sep 5, 2018 • 12 tweets • 4 min read
It’s Wednesday, right? For sure? I’m not falling for this “it’s Wednesday, but not really” nonesense again today. Ok well since it is actually a Wednesday...let’s get our #CrowOrNo on! New players: just tell me if at least one of these birds is a crow or not before 5:30ish PST. After that I post the answer and ID tips. Good luck!
Sep 4, 2018 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
These responses make me want to crawl under a rock. Honestly I don’t even know what I want to do which is terrifying enough, but add the “it took 5 years and 100+ applications” to the mix and it feels completely fucking hopeless. Do I even want to stay in academia? IDK! I can’t imagine not doing researching but at the same time academia makes me so unhappy sometimes. And maybe I just want to stay in research because it’s the only life I’ve known.
Aug 29, 2018 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
Nature is metal 🤟 This is a bleeding tooth fungus or Hydnellum peckii. Despite their deadly appearance these mushrooms are nontoxic, though they’re very bitter and bad to eat.
Aug 29, 2018 • 17 tweets • 4 min read
Anyone want to guess what I have to say about that “crow shares food with hungry mouse” video? If you don’t know what I’m talking about you can find the now viral video here: reddit.com/r/AnimalsBeing…
Aug 29, 2018 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
It’s that time again folks! From penguins to corvids, tuxedos are a popular look in the bird world. But is this particular fashionista a #CrowOrNo? I’ll post the answer around 5:30 PST, though no promises because I’m on fieldwork time 😉. Photo c/o Frans Sellies. Nicely done folks with the amazing turn out! As most of you guessed today’s #CrowOrNo is most definitely a crow! An African pied crow to be precise.
Aug 29, 2018 • 11 tweets • 3 min read
So I realized I havent done a stellar job of communicating what exactly my PostDoc is all about. Yes it’s in Denali and yes it’s about Canada jays. But let’s get to the details. Across much of their northern range, Canada jays are what we call obligate cachers, meaning they rely on the food they stored during the fall to survive the winter. Importantly the food they cache is perishable, so those cold winter temps are key to keeping the food from rotting.
Aug 22, 2018 • 12 tweets • 5 min read
Welcome new followers! Are you ready to play one of the most fun #Scicomm games on Twitter??? Well get ready, because #CrowOrNo is here and ready to knock your socks off How does #CrowOrNo work? Every Wednesday at about 11:30am PST I’ll post a photo of a bird. It’s up to you to decide if it’s a crow or not.
Aug 18, 2018 • 8 tweets • 4 min read
Yesterday I defended my thesis & become Dr. Kaeli Swift. For a little girl who couldn’t read until she was 8, who for so long thought she was doomed to academic failure, this is a huge moment. 2nd person & 1st woman in my family to boot. I’m really fucking proud of myself. Wow. Just wow. The outpouring of support here has kind of blown me away. Thank you all so, so much.
Aug 8, 2018 • 6 tweets • 3 min read
After several weeks (well, years) of work my dissertation has been submitted to my committee. No telling what they’ll say, but while I sweat that out I think it’s only fair that you grapple with your own crow struggles. In other words... #CrowOrNo is officially back! With it being 90* here in Seattle, I think this rather hot bird is a fitting photo for today’s #CrowOrNo. The question is...is it a #HotCrow or a #HotNo? Answer at 5:30PST
Aug 1, 2018 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
Update: I discovered an unpublished observation from the early 90's of a male orca carrying a dead calf around in its mouth. Whether that male was being motivated by the same things as when females (especially mothers) engage in this behavior is unknown. researchgate.net/profile/Dan_Ke… That said, given that we know orcas will commit infanticide, it's possible this male had actually killed the calf itself (or in conjunction with others). Not to get real grim here but can we talk about that infanticide episode for a minute? Because it's suuuuuper interesting.
Jul 31, 2018 • 31 tweets • 7 min read
So for the past week one of our southern resident orca whales has been carrying around her dead calf. This is heartbreaking for a number of reasons including that our southern resident orcas are endangered. time.com/5353745/orca-d… Given the mother’s response, there’s been ongoing coverage with lots of headlines including words like grief and mourning, and many of the whale researchers have been using these words too.
Jul 30, 2018 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
@michelleisawolf @thebreaknetflix Hi! I want to let you know that I’m not a man, so the joke should have been “when SHE goes to a party SHE gets to tell everyone HER job is to watch for whether the crow had sex w/ the dead crow.” Pls don’t assume scientist are male identifying Also it seems like you had lots of questions so let me answer them. 1) no, most crows do not have sex with dead crows, this only happened 4% of the time. 2) probably no soul releasing involved. I’d hope if that was they case they’d do it more...
May 25, 2018 • 12 tweets • 4 min read
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…
Feb 16, 2018 • 22 tweets • 7 min read
Dovetailing off the #WowScienceFact hashtag I want to dedicate a whole thread to all the things I find most wow enducing about crows and ravens. Ready? Did you know there are 44 different Corvus (crows, ravens and rooks) species? They’re found on every continent except Antarctica and South America. Some of them, like the ʻalalā are among the rarest animals on earth. corvidresearch.blog/2017/01/05/the…
Dec 22, 2017 • 16 tweets • 3 min read
Back in October, a study came out from the Max Planck Institute in Germany looking at reconciliation behaviors in carrion crows after instances of aggression. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/et… Popular media has recently turned its attention on this rather fascinating paper, which is great. A drawback though is that some of the more interesting details get dropped from the popsci articles. dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/ar…