...and I was quite amazed !
I work at a large retail home improvement store with a huge parking lot. Today I was sitting in my truck on my lunch hour and looked up to see a woman throw her fast food bag out the window as she finished eating and was driving off.
Immediately, a crow that was perched on the top of our building, flew down and began to examine the bag. First, he looked into the open bag and saw that there was something inside. He then picked the bag up, turned it upside down and shook out everything in the bag. He got ahold of a sauce cup and pecked the foil to pierce it, then he stuck his beak in the foil and spread his jaws to fully push the foil back to the cup edges and proceeded to eat the sweet-n-sour sauce. He did it to another sauce cup and ate all of it. He then turned to the apple pie that was still in its carton...sealed tight. He studied a bit and then jumped up on the edge of the pie box and used his beak to peck and rip open the box. Once the box was open he turned it upside down too and shook the pie out and ate every last crumb. Fully fed, he flew off happy I guess.
It may have been the smartest thing i've ever seen any animal do and i've been in the woods hard now for 45 years. I've seen animals do some amazing things, but nothing like this. Can you top this story ?
What have you seen animals do that made you scratch your head ?
As much of a kick as I got out of watching that.....it's a shame he didn't come on over and get a swig off my coke to wash it all down...I would have let him.......
Crows are one of the smarter animals I've seen
Quote from: CASH on February 26, 2014, 09:30:31 PM
Crows are one of the smarter animals I've seen
Very True!
Can't top that one for sure, but my dog does something that cracks me up every time she does it. She is a big fan of peanut butter and when we finish a jar of peanut butter I tear off the lable, hand her the jar and let her out. She will lay down in the yard and lick every bit she can reach. She can only reach about halfway down the jar with her tongue. Then she holds the jar down with one paw, reaches in with the other paw to swipe out a little more peanut butter, licks it off and repeats until she cleans up the jar. Clever old dog.
When I was a youngun 40 years or so ago I do not remember seeing crows scavaging, especially scavaging road kill on the side of the road like a buzzard or vulture. Crows may be evolving. In another 40 years they may be dangerous.
Quote from: CASH on February 26, 2014, 09:30:31 PM
Crows are one of the smarter animals I've seen
Yep, even smarter than the woman throwing trash out the car window.
Crows and coyotes are the most instinctive animals on this planet. That's an awesome thing to witness bowbender.
One chilly spring morning, I was wade fishing on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. I was about 50 yards off of the beach fishing along a set of train trestles, catching croakers and an occasional flounder. I heard something hit the water further out and saw that a young pigeon had fallen off of the trestle and was struggling in the cold water. As it would have been too deep for me to reach her, I bid her well and turned back to fishing. After a few minutes, I heard something. I turned around and there was the pigeon making her way towards me with great difficulty. She came right up to me, stopped and floating there, turned her eyes up to me. It was obvious to me that she would not be able to make it all the way to the shore-and she seemed to know it too.
I stood there in silence, trying to fully absorb the wonder of that moment. Here was an animal that was all but pleading with me to please save her life. I waded over to her, gently scooped her up and carried her back to the beach and set her in the sunshine on the sands to warm up and dry off. I waded back out to where I was and went back to fishing. After a while I looked back to check on her and apparently she had gotten her strength back and was gone.
Several years ago we had what I think was the same crow overwinter around our yard 3 years running. The first winter I had a suet feeder for the birds down by our creek, and was going broke trying to keep it filled. The bloody crows would clean it out in an hour or two. I got this bright idea and hung it from a little chain, so that the suet was about a foot below the closest limb. That stymied the crows and the little guys got to come in and feed for a change.
One day I noticed a crow sitting on the branch above the feeder, staring at it. After a bit he hopped over to a different limb, and stared from another angle. This went on for over an hour and then you could literally see the little light bulb over his head go on. He hopped down on to the limb where the feeder was fastened, leaned down as far as he could reach with his bill, grabbed the little chain, pulled it up, and trapped it under his foot. Then he repeated the sequence, trapping the chain under his other foot. Now he could reach the suet, and ate to his heart's content.
The rest of the flock watched, but none of the others attempted the same solution. One crow out of the neighborhood flock continued that behavior for the next two winters, and then it never happened again so we concluded he went to that big cottonwood in the sky.
An amazing bird, he could actually THINK and solve a problem. Heck, I've got some neighbors who aren't that smart!
http://m.wimp.com/crowsolves/
They are smart!!
You MUST watch this if you are even remotely interested in Crows. It's unbelievable.
http://video.pbs.org/video/1621910826/
You'll never look at crows the same again.
Crows are very smart,they can solve a 4 part problem.even the great apes can not solve a 4 part problem.They can also remember a face and can pick you out of a crowd of pepole .!!!!
I've watched sea gulls pick up crawdads or clams along Lk. Michigan and fly high into the air and drop them on the rocks to break the shells so they could get the goodies inside.
Quote from: redarrow on February 27, 2014, 11:31:10 AM
I've watched sea gulls pick up crawdads or clams along Lk. Michigan and fly high into the air and drop them on the rocks to break the shells so they could get the goodies inside.
Crows will do the same thing with pecans. Them and yotes are survivors for sure.
You can find out a ton by going to the CrowBusters website. While there you can purchase some Gibson and Mincey crow calls.
I am VERY fortunate to live within 15 mins of Daryl Gibson, Michael Buckner & M.L. Walker..... three of the worlds BEST crow call makers!!! I have learned a TON about the species over the past five or six years from all of these men!!! A crow IS NOT a dumb animal.