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A comment on Crows possess higher intelligence long thought a primarily human attribute. Parent comment

Re:Crows possess higher intelligence long thought a primaril... by hexbinencoded on Thursday September 24, 2020 @11:40PM (#24586356)
Yep. You can make friends with crows, and they will remember you for a very long time. If you get shiny things, then you're the crow's meow. Bones maybe just "meh."

https://youtu.be/dg3ApNJct6Q

https://youtu.be/0fiAoqwsc9g

https://youtu.be/HWXe7Js6GnI

https://youtu.be/VOmRNeYZVfE

Furthermore, crows can be sneaky. A murder of them hanging out behind my mechanic's goaded the dork of the group into stealing a bag sunflower seeds on top of a rolling toolbox 30 ft / 10 m on the other side of the shop from the roll-up doors. It had to figure-out how to sneak-in, hop up on the toolbox, and sneak-out without being detected like a bloody ninja. The group of them had a sunflower seed party in the alley and one mechanic wondered where his snack went to. And there were 3 people in the shop at the time! xD

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Re:Crows possess higher intelligence long thought a primaril... by yellowapple on Friday September 25, 2020 @08:04AM (#24588876)
Not only will those crows remember you, but so will other crows that have never seen you before. There's growing evidence that crows are capable of social learning, teaching things to other crows in the murder (including subsequent generations).

I strongly suspect that one of these days we're going to discover that crows and their relatives are not only capable of using language, but already are speaking languages that we just haven't deciphered yet.

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Re:Crows possess higher intelligence long thought a primaril... by orestarod on Friday September 25, 2020 @09:45PM (#24595775)
Instead of a full fledged language, they may have a more restricted language to communicate that "that" human is friendly - so the friendly crows you have never seen before may have seen you first, together with your buddy, and been informed of your friendliness. To recognise you as friend without ever meeting you before needs a lot more complex language.
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Re:Crows possess higher intelligence long thought a primaril... by saurik on Saturday September 26, 2020 @04:39AM (#24597312)
Yeah: and likely much more complex language than I as a human would even be capable of, unless the person I am supposed to be friends with has some very notable physical feature.
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Re:Crows possess higher intelligence long thought a primaril... by b0rsuk on Friday September 25, 2020 @08:35AM (#24589027)
Jays (another corvid) are fast, sneaky, and mostly silent until they screech. The funny part is they're great at mimicking sounds. Here's a jay mimicking a cat:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?&v=YFdO_5DgK7M

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Re:Crows possess higher intelligence long thought a primaril... by smusamashah on Friday September 25, 2020 @08:40AM (#24589062)
There is a saying here in Pakistan (India too perhaps) that when crows 'crow', some guests come.

I think it originated from the observation that they started crowing whenever they saw some new person coming.

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Re:Crows possess higher intelligence long thought a primaril... by rutherblood on Friday September 25, 2020 @12:03PM (#24591231)
Where I grew up (south Gujarat, IN) every year someday in September, families prepare multiple plates of good food and place them out on terraces for the crows to eat. They believe the crows eating this food to be recently deceased ancestors/family. The number of plates placed usually correspond to the number of deaths the family's witnessed in living memory.
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Re:Crows possess higher intelligence long thought a primaril... by pradn on Friday September 25, 2020 @11:32AM (#24590863)
I can attest that this saying is common in South India (Andhra Pradesh specifically). It doesn't necessarily the guests will arrive immediately after - it can be sometime during that day.
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