American Crow - An Amazing Bird

American Crow - Gift Giver and Problem Solver

American Crow  [Internet Photo]

The American Crow (Corvus brachyrhynchos) is a member of the Corvidae family which also includes ravens, jays, magpies and one nutcracker.   Crows are very common and widespread in North America and known by almost everybody.  There are 7 species in North America and they are well represented worldwide.

Crows are intelligent and adaptable and this post will discuss crow behaviour rather than their life history.  We have been feeding the American Crows in our area for many years.  We use an elevated platform with a surrounding lip so that the food does not blow off.  We don't feed on the ground so that dogs and cats and varmints cannot eat the food.  Some of it would not be good for dogs, for example. We often give them fat and that can make dogs very sick.  

American Crow on Feeding Platform

Feeding crows is an enjoyable endeavour.  They wait everyday for their ration.  They even sit in a tree close to the house from which they can see inside our bedroom.  They appear to be watching for when we get up.  When they see motion they appear to get excited in anticipation of getting their 'breakfast'.  When we go outside with the obvious food dishes in hand, one crow will give a 'whoop' sound which alerts the whole family which is in the area.  To me it sounds like, 'Whoop, here she come!'  What is not to love about crows!

When we first started feeding crows I (tongue in cheek) told them that if I fed them I wanted them to stop tearing our garbage apart as it sat on the side of the road on garbage pickup days.  Well, they seem to have obliged!  I don't know if they understood, or if they are no longer hungry or if in these years we have started composting organic kitchen waste.  Whatever the reason, we have a good arrangement with our local crows.  

There are many reasons why crows are special birds.  One area that has been studied widely is their problem-solving ability.  They can figure out 2 or 3 step solutions to problems.  Food is usually the prize and the crow can, for example, figure out how to pull a string and step on it in various stages of pulling in order to stop the food from dropping down out of reach.  Crows can also make tools in order to solve problems.  This has been proven many times by behavioural studies.  Through these studies it has been shown that crows are as intelligent as some primates.  

Crows are mimics.  They can reproduce human and environmental sounds.  Many of us have heard wild crows say 'hello' from high up in a tree.  Some crows can reproduce other bird songs and industrial sounds.  They have tricked many people this way.  Captive individuals can develop a substantial vocabulary.  Studies have shown that they are better mimics than parrots because they can reproduce sounds in both the high and the low registers giving them more diversity than parrots.  

Crows have a fascination with humans.  This must be because we have interacted for thousands of years.  They think about what we are doing and exploit us to suit their needs.  Note the example of watching for me to get out of bed and then telling all crowdom that food will be coming shortly.  An important fact is that crows recognize us as individuals.  They recognize faces.  Many studies have been done to prove this.  In one case they recognized a certain person on a university campus and warned others that this person was 'bad'.  They remembered this person and changed their behaviour around him for many years.  They even passed this behaviour towards this individual on to the next generation of crows.  

Crows can count.  This has been proven in different ways but one way was to put a certain number of persons in a blind and then take a certain number away.  The crows could figure out without fail that some people were left in the blind and thus they could not go about their normal activity near the blind.   Experiments have shown they can count objects and keep tack of where they are.  Our observations also show that they probably have good memories involving numbers.  The crows we feed haul the feed away and hide it in the field nearby.  I don't believe they randomly find it later.  What I observe is that when the feeders are empty the crows fly directly to various places in the field and retrieve the stashed food.  They don't appear to walk around searching for stashed food.  Scientific research indicates that the crow remembers every place it has stashed food.

Crows have 'funerals'.  I think most of us 'birders' have witnessed this behaviour.  There will be a huge gathering of crows, perhaps 100.  They seem to appear out of nowhere and are all over the ground, trees, bushes, etc.  On looking closely there will be a dead crow on the ground.  They seem to each fly down and look at the deceased.  Shortly afterwards they will move away and more will come and take a look.  It is thought that this behaviour is done to teach each crow the danger of the place and whatever or whoever was responsible for the death of the individual.  

Crows will also murder some of their kin.  They kill the individual by picking it to death.  More than one individual may be the perpetrator.  The victim is usually a weak, injured or sick flock member.  It is thought this behaviour has evolved in order to protect the flock from attracting predators which might kill some of the healthy crows.    

The most fascinating crow trait for me is their supposed gift giving.  There are many examples of this but I will tell you mine.  After feeding the crows for sometime, one day I noticed a small object on the otherwise empty crow feeding tray.  It was a small red plastic object.  I wondered how it got there and what it was.  There was no way it could have blown there.  It did not come included in the feed.  It was not anything I had seen before.  I concluded it was a gift from the crows. Following are other examples of crow gift giving.  

In 2006, after feeding crows for two years, a man said to a group of crows waiting in a nearby tree for their daily feed, 'Hey, how come you never bring me anything?  I always give you food, and you never bring me anything.'  He then went in the house and the crows cleaned up the food.  Late that afternoon, long after the food had been all eaten, he noticed a small object sitting in the middle of the tray.  Taking a look he was stunned to find a small purple candy heart that on one side was written the word, 'LOVE'.

A woman from Indiana was sitting outside reading when out of nowhere a crow dropped from the sky, landed on her lap and left her an inch-long necklace bead.  Another woman from Seattle was a regular crow feeder.  She regularly went out for a walk and threw dog kibble on the sidewalks for the crows.    The crows would unceremoniously drop onto the sidewalk to feed near her.  One day as she went about her usual feeding stroll she heard a sound as a metallic object dropped at her feet.  A crow had dropped a key for her.  The crow ate his food and then flew away leaving her the key.  

Corvids have been giving gifts for hundreds of years.  The Old Testament tells us the ravens brought food to Elijah while he was in the desert.  There are examples throughout literature of crows giving gifts.  For example, a play written by Ben Jonson in the 1600s is based on a crow giving gifts to a fox.  

Crows are clearly successful problem solvers and have used their many talents to survive in our changing world.  They are ignored or scorned by most of us.  But to those who pay attention, they are fascinating creatures who do not get enough credit for the 'work' they do in society.  Think of how they clean up our highways.  They have learned to fit well into our many different habitats and environments.  For this tool-maker species,  it may be that the most important intelligent feature they have is to adapt to live closely with and from us.  

References: 

Lesley the Bird Nerd, YouTube.com

Marzluff, John, Angell, Tony; Gifts of the Crow, Atria, 2013.