- cross-posted to:
- vegan@lemmy.ml
- cross-posted to:
- vegan@lemmy.ml
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I have a murder that visits my yard almost every day. I have a large bowl for water, I give them cheap dry cat food, and on occasion unsalted peanuts. Hope you can make some friends
Me too, though I just leave out hockey masks and spare saws for him to play with
I am only a little concerned that befriending a crow would drive a wedge between me and my dog, who would certainly see that friendship a betrayal.
Should be pretty doable if you keep a little packet of seeds on your person
I wanna try at some point, but my work schedule means I probably can't make the time commitments.
I imagine it's the combination of evolutionary pressures of being a scavenger and having to fly. Since crows tend to steal food from dangerous animals like wolves, they need to be able to react quickly and to be able to predict behavior of other animals. This selects for intelligence and a theory of mind. Meanwhile, flying means you have to keep things lean.
It's also worth noting that the human brain has massive redundancy in it. For example, there was a case of a guy in France who was missing 90% of the brain due to an extreme case of hydrocephalus. He didn’t even realize there was anything wrong with him until he went to the doctor for some unrelated problem, only to be referred to a specialist because his head seemed a bit too large.
https://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/as-it-happens-thursday-edition-1.3679117/scientists-research-man-missing-90-of-his-brain-who-leads-a-normal-life-1.3679125
In light of that, crows having high levels of intelligence doesn't seem that weird at all.
Crows are self-aware just like humans
"Oh no, is my plumage too dark? Were the other crows laughing with me or at me? Is my crowing too high pitched? Was that raven offended when I mistook him for a crow?"
One of my pastimes as an incredibly lonely teenager was just observing jackdaws, crows and magpies. You can tell that they actually think before acting which is fascinating.
Also jackdaws have very pretty eyes.
There's a squad of crows living in my neighborhood and watching them set up their lil community of nests has been an amazing time
Same for Parrots, corvids and parrots are in the IQ level of dolphins and big simios. But there are also other animals with self awareness (mirror test), eg Elephants, Manta Rays, Octopus and even Ants. Many animals are much more intelligent than was thought a few years ago and self-awareness is surely present in most of them and also a minimum of intelligence, because they are an essential faculties for the will to survive.
Even bees are smart enough to recognize and difference a human face, jumping spiders can plan different strategies to hunt their prey
https://tube.kuylar.dev/watch?v=UDtlvZGmHYk
https://tube.kuylar.dev/watch?v=H4JfRrOPKlE
https://www.animalcognition.org/2015/04/15/list-of-animals-that-have-passed-the-mirror-test/
this is very interesting but how the fuck did they figure this out? i skimmed the article and its vague on what would be the coolest details.
One common test is the famous "mirror test" where an animal is given some problem that can only be solved by using its own reflection in a mirror for reference, such as a study involving an Australian ant. They put a blue dot made of felt (I think) on the ant's head behind the antennae, and watched the ant clean itself once it saw that it's reflection had a weird blue thing on its head. But I don't know if there are other tests for "self awareness"
My dad was telling me earlier about how these crows have been hanging around our house and he saw some squirrels trying to chase them off.
I think the real question is, given how smart they are, and that they know they are smart, and that they know we are smart:
why don't they worship us like Gods and adorn us with crow gifts
