I read this article today about how clever crows (actually, the article refers to various corvids, not just crows)
http://www.cracked.com/article_19042_6-terrifying-ways-crows-are-way-smarter-than-you-think.html
And it reminded me of an incident from 10 or more years ago. Where I grew up, there were always crows around. We had a small group living in the fields and trees around the house, never really noticed them much or had much to do with them, but they used to clean up Sultie’s kills for us, which worked well for both us and them. They never bothered about us or the cat in any negative way, and in return we didn’t really interact with them. One year, they had a bunch of young, I think some of the young birds may have come from neighbouring groups of crows rather than just our own, usual crowd. One day, the young crows (all fledged and independent) mobbed Sultie at the bottom of the garden, and I think they would have killed him if someone hadn’t seen them and ran out to help him. Sultie was a bit traumatised but thankfully not hurt. I don’t know what caused them to do it, but we got the feeling it was a bunch of troublemaker crows.
The crows had an old nest in a big tree at the bottom of the fields, that had been occupied annually for certainly as long as we had lived there. Dad and I took Sultan down the field to that nest a day or so after they had mobbed him, and while I held the cat a safe distance back, Dad shot the nest out the tree with a shot gun. No crows were there, no crows or young were hurt, but everyone got the message. The crows never again bothered Sultan, and the bunch of troublemaking youngsters thinned out a lot after that – I think they moved to other areas and bigger murders in the area.
The understanding of the birds for the message we sent impressed me; we were on alert for a while afterwards in case they went for the cat again, but they never did. The article I linked above talks about how crows seem to remember slights and take revenge; I think the birds knew what had happened and accepted it as payback. I have always admired and respected corvids, and I still do.
Has anyone else had any odd experiences with crows? Does anyone else like and respect them?
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