Come Join The Murder

Ever wondered if animals truly understand connection? In this episode, we're exploring the extraordinary relational world of the American Crow. Join us as we uncover a compelling story of crow friendship, their incredible ability for problem solving, and their surprising potential to give gifts and form lasting relationships with humans. Get ready to rethink what's possible when it comes to communication and connection, all through the lens of one of nature's most intelligent birds.  

Sources:

https://www.mpg.de/12401947/1024-verh-060830-new-caledonian-crows-compound-tools 

https://vt.audubon.org/news/ciara-and-crows-dating-advice-crow 

http://archives.wbur.org/thewildlife/2015/03/12/the-secrets-of-gift-giving-crows/ 

https://jacquesjulien.com/the-symbolism-of-the-crow-across-ages-and-cultures/ 

Music by Soulful Jam Tracks

Transcript

Todd Pabst: 0:01

Welcome to Animal School. Grab your pack and gather around. It started simple enough, tossing a cashew to a medium-sized all-black bird that's watching you from a nearby tree. The bird glides down, grabs the nut, and flies off. You think nothing of it. The next morning, you notice a bird perched on your fence. It's also medium-sized and all-black. This time, you pay attention. The bird really is all black. Its feathers, beak, even its legs and feet are black. It's probably 18 inches tall. You get a little more curious. You take a photo and start searching. Crows and ravens are both all black. The differences are in their size, feet, beaks, and feathering. Ravens are bigger with large talons, wavy throat feathers, and a hooked beak. Crows are smaller with small, flexible feet. a pointed beak, and feathering that's less impressive overall. The bird outside your home is an American crow. You learn that they love cashews, but salt may not be good for them. They also love peanuts, sunflower seeds, hard-boiled eggs, and cooked meat. You look outside and the bird is still there. Is it watching you? You put half a hard-boiled egg on a paper plate and leave it on the porch. Crows do in fact love hard-boiled eggs. Days go on and one crow is now a few. Days turn into weeks, and the menu and their engagement grows. Unsalted nuts and seeds, plain granola, cat food, roasted chicken, hamburger, canned tuna, hot dogs. Hot dogs might prove to be a problem. They really liked the hot dogs. They communicated about the hot dogs. There are now well over a dozen crows. They're organizing, and it's starting to get weird. A single crow that sees you in the morning will vocalize and quickly multiply. They accompany you on walks, a few paces to the sides, to the front, or behind. People in your neighborhood are noticing. Not in a bad way, but noticing. Having a half dozen crows following you to check the mail is going to raise some eyebrows. It gets weirder. It started with a pinecone on your car, odd because you didn't park under any trees. A couple days later, it was a small stick, a bottle cap, another pine cone, some small coins left one at a time, not just on your car, but on your windowsill, and around the area where you gave the first crow the first hard-boiled egg. One morning, you see a crow land on your car and leave a piece of balled-up tinfoil above the driver's side door. Can crows give gifts? Apparently, they can, and they do. This rabbit hole is going deep. Can't stop now. This is getting interesting. You start giving them earthworms, mealworms, salmon, more hot dogs. A dozen crows is now over two dozen, and their behavior, it's evolving. What started with occasional squawks at the neighbors has turned into dive bombing attacks on the UPS driver. Their entire murder has started sizing up anyone that approaches your house, posturing for attack. They know where you live. They know the car you drive. They know your schedule. You are theirs. Crows are part of the Corvid family that includes ravens, blue jays, magpies, and a few others. Known as one of the most intelligent species, they are renowned for their problem-solving skills and are one of only a few species on the planet that don't just use tools, but make tools for their use. They manufacture. They are the only non-human species that is known for making hooked tools. They use these tools to increase their foraging ability. New Caledonian crows are especially adept at this and regularly create these tiny hooks by finding and bending pliable materials into a J-shape that helps them to extract food from places their beaks can't reach. They've even learned to make compound tools, assembling multiple tool components that aren't useful on their own into a single tool that is able to achieve their goal. This ability points to a special type of cognitive ability that not only isn't replicated anywhere else in the animal kingdom, but takes several years for human children to learn. That unassuming black bird out your window possesses problem-solving skills superior to that of your average toddler. And what happens when a crow successfully creates and uses a tool? They seem to celebrate, showing behavior that's excited and optimistic, pointing to genuine satisfaction for solving their problem. They feel good about themselves, and this points to intrinsic motivation, meaning that they not only get satisfaction from the reward of tool use, but in overcoming a personal challenge. You can find videos online of crows solving multi-step puzzles, both man-made and environmental. One video shows a crow attempting to drink from a partially full water bottle. The beak isn't long enough to reach the water inside, so they begin dropping small rocks into the bottle. This incrementally raises the internal water level until it's high enough for their drinking. Another video shows a crow instigating a fight between two cats that are otherwise perfectly content leaving one another alone. The cats are napping on a rooftop and the crow begins pestering one cat, pecking at its rear until the cat gets frustrated and engages. The cat stalks the crow, getting closer and closer, closing the distance until they can pounce. Each step brings the angry cat closer to both the crow and the sleeping cat. Eventually the cat pounces as the crow hops out of the way. The angry cat lands on the sleeping cat. Mayhem ensues. The cats bite, claw, roll, and scream until they both fall off the roof and onto the ground below. This crow behavior goes beyond your typical animal behavior of survival, resource protection, or procreation. This behavior is on another level. It's self-amusing. and it indicates a strong ability for self-awareness, confidence, even imagination. So what can crows teach us about relationships? Healthy relationships are built on a foundation of loyalty and communication, and crows have these traits in spades. They're generally monogamous, pairing for life and will only remate if and when their partner dies. When a crow does pass on, the murder will gather around, seemingly mourning their fallen friend. They share strong family bonds and practice cooperative breeding, meaning that their community partners will help to shoulder the burden of raising the young, even if those young aren't their own. They work together to build nests and feed mama crows during incubation. They know that a happy and healthy mom is more likely to raise a happy and healthy baby. They say it takes a village to raise a child. Crows understand this, and they embrace it. Their actions show that family relationships matter. Community relationships matter. and the health and wellbeing of their collective future generations matters. Crow communication is diverse, using a mix of complex vocalizations and physical gestures to communicate. Crow families can even have regional dialects, similar to how humans can have different accents while all speak in the same language. A New Yorker will often sound different than a Texan. Crows are the same. They have the ability to remember and recognize an individual, and whether this is good or bad, It's always interesting. Crows know how to make friends, form bonds, hold grudges, and will get protective over what and who they care about. Their gift giving is a topic that's still up for debate. One theory is that this behavior is based on conditioning and gift giving is associated with acquiring greater resources from humans. You scratch my back, I scratch yours, reciprocity in action. Another theory is that their gift giving may be more manipulative or even experimental in nature. Research shows that crow gifting tends to be more prevalent when their food supply diminishes, shifting from transactional or reciprocal in nature to more of a bartering system. They want more of something, so they change their behavior in an attempt to influence outcomes. They try changing the number of gifts or the frequency, giving more or more often in an attempt to bring back the snacks they love so much. Still other theories are more altruistic and could be related to kin selection. The idea that actions, even when costly to the animal itself, may be beneficial for the greater community. Kin selection isn't transactional. It's an investment in what they see as their community and their future. It's well-being beyond themselves. Crows may actually see their favorite humans as an extension of their social network and are okay with putting in the work of gift-giving to do something they think could be appreciated by their human friend. Like a child giving a school friend one of their toy cars just because. In his book, The Five Languages of Love, Gary Chapman popularized the idea of gift-giving as a way to show love. Gift-giving for those that speak this language is a powerful opportunity to express affection and show appreciation. Love languages, according to Chapman, exist for both gift-giving and receiving, meaning that if you have this love language, it could either be a way you choose to express your love, by giving a gift, or a way you like to receive love, by getting a gift. Resources matter a great deal in the animal kingdom, and the proactive sharing of resources between humans and animals is not especially common. Whatever the reason, it's likely that a mix of all these possibilities is at play. Humans give gifts for all different reasons, some holistic, some transactional, some downright manipulative. Is the bottle cap that a crow leaves their human a thank you, a sign of affection, or a bribe? Humans are multifaceted in their reasoning for giving gifts. Perhaps crows are as well. So what happens when you try to start a relationship with a crow? Just like with any relationship, there's a few possibilities. Sometimes they may not be interested. Sometimes that relationship grows. Sometimes they come to adore you and want to show you off to their friends and family. They can shower you with gifts or decide to join you for a walk. Sometimes the relationship goes places you wish it wouldn't. There are stories of crow relationships getting a little out of hand. over-communicating, over-organizing, getting possessive and aggressive with people that may come onto the property you share with the crows. It tends to start with a squawk, maybe a show of force from the crow community. It can escalate all the way to physical attacks. In these situations, the advice is always the same. Be good to them, because odds are, they'll remember you. The story in the beginning of this episode, supposedly, is a true one. a relationship that started innocently enough with cashews and bottle caps that began to turn toxic. Neighbors and visitors were being attacked and chased away when approaching the property of the crow friend. Eventually, they contacted their local Audubon society for support, and they were encouraged to not stop the behavior of offering healthy treats for the crows, but to do more of it and to encourage the neighbors in the community to do the same. This stopped the behavior, restored harmony, and grew the relationship between murder and So how are crows doing today? Some smaller crow species are facing challenges, but overall, crows are doing quite well. And while the West Nile virus has significantly impacted population numbers and created an overall decline in American crow numbers, they are considered a species of least concern, due in large part to their flexible and adaptable nature. Their intelligence, omnivorous diet, and strong family support structure has allowed them to thrive, especially in urban areas. The symbolism of the crow across cultures is fascinating and contradictory. This unassuming blackbird, more substance than style, has at times been associated with wisdom and light, and at other times been associated with curses and death. Celtic mythologies opted for the dark associations, while Greco-Roman mythology leaned into the more positive ones. The crow was even the favorite bird of the goddess Athena, until their talkative and indiscreet nature saw them replaced by the more stoic owl. Native American cultures held a positive view of crows, seeing them as messengers, protectors, and spiritual guides, while acknowledging that they were also mischievous, unpredictable, and tricksters by nature, both multifaceted and nuanced. We all hold a lot of roles in life—student, Teacher, child, parent, sibling, friend. The individuals that know you in each of these roles all see you a little different. Who you are professionally is not who you are personally. We all have a lot of masks we can wear. Our social masks are one way we adapt. Our ability to adapt at will is one of the things that makes humans so special. The reason why we have so much potential. We can choose to be just about anything. Change isn't easy. It takes time. It takes energy. It takes effort. And not everyone has the same ability, support, and resources. This can change our outcome significantly. We don't all have the same starting line. But make no mistake, you have the ability to reinvent yourself. You can learn new things, form new habits, develop new skills. You can change how you spend your time and what you focus on. You can grow every day. Each day is another opportunity to get a little closer to the person you want to be or to get a little further away from the person you don't want to be. Humans are both complicated and simple. You are both complicated and simple. And whether you're bland or beautiful on the outside, know that the best aspects of you will always come from within. The beliefs you hold, the values you share, the relationships you build, the loyalty you give. the way you choose to engage with the world. Learn how to show love. Learn how to receive love. Make a new friend. Grow your community. Give a gift to a stranger. And stay playful. Thank you for listening to Animal School. My name is Todd Pabst and I am not an expert. I'm learning just like you are. Until next time.