Crows: Encounters With The Wise Guys Of The Avian World (2007) - Plot & Excerpts
Here's the deal, people: crows are amazing. I could write a long review here, spewing my love for them, despite their loud caws outside my window at six-thirty on a Saturday morning. I could tell you all about their complex family and group dynamics, how they mate for life (even though the females are notoriously promiscuous), how they cache food and sparkly treasures, how they raid their fellow crows' caches, how they trick their fellow crows into thinking they're hiding their food and shiny treasures in a certain cache but they're really tricking them into thinking they're hiding they're stuff so they can go hide it somewhere safer while the tricked tricksters go empty out the empty cache, how some crows have displayed linguistic talents greater even than their more lauded parrot cousins (just because they're all colorful people think they're sooooo special), how crows have regional dialects, how if you become a crow antagonist in one county you may very well go into the next county over and notice that all the crows are giving the stink eye to you because their crow friends have warned them about you, and of course it must be said how awesome it is that a group of crows is called a murder. All of this is true.But the one thing I'll leave you with that truly illustrates the awesomeness of crows is this amazing video of Betty the New Caledonian Crow who was a subject of study in which she proved that she can make and use tools. Let me repeat that for you: MAKE AND USE TOOLS! Does this not amaze you? If not, take a moment to consider how many animals use tools. Humans (yep, we're animals), lots of primates like chimps and orangutans and bonobos and gorillas and some others (they use sticks to hit stuff, basically), dolphins sometimes stick sponges on their noses and then dig through sand with it, elephants can hit stuff with sticks or drop rocks on things, sea otters can hit stuff with sticks, and some species of birds like Egyptian vultures use rocks to break open eggs. But tool manufacture is a different thing, and the list of animals that have been observed to do it is much shorts: us humans again (it happens every now and then, even I have witnessed it!), chimpanzees, maybe orangutans, maybe (and it's a big maybe on this one, in my opinion) Asian elephants, and most definitely New Caledonian crows. Cool, eh?So the next time someone asks you what your favorite animal is, I trust you know what the correct answer is.Bonus material:A crow displays causal understanding of water displacement.A crow displays its ability to think multiple steps ahead. (Disclaimer: this video probably displays trainability more than inherent smarts, but it's still pretty cool.)This crow found a human friend.Let David Attenborough tell you how Japanese crows use the city to get food.AN ACTUAL RAVEN SAYING "NEVERMORE"This guy is basically living my dream.P.S. It occurs to me that I should actually say something about this book. It's a good introduction to why crows are awesome and I highly recommend it. It's nice and succinct and doesn't get too technical.
Caught by an online video of a New Caledonian crow's problem-solving capacity, I embarked on a binge of crow-raven reading. Interested as I am in animal minds, I combed my local libraries for books in the small 598.864 bird- and the larger 591.513 animal-behavior sections, the latter for chapters on crows.Like many books, this one gave much space to the mythology and historical views of crows. Though small--105 pages--it is the most beautiful of the lot, in both text and image, a portmanteau of illustrations, poems, myths, research and observation. I was particularly taken by the photo of baby crows in the nest (page 48). All was gray in the image: the nest materials, branches, scarce feathery fluff, and then the fierce red-orange of the nestlings' mouths, agape with begging. I was also fond of the inclusion of studies about seemingly genetic-based behaviors versus situational (can I say cultural?) behavior among crow populations in different countries.An aspect of crow and ravens common to folklore is that of prospering at the expense of another. The author points out that their intelligence gives them a survival advantage, the ability to surmount obstacles and difficulties presented by other creatures with whom they might be in competition. She points out further that "this theory predicts that exceptionally smart animals will also be exceptionally tricky" (page 61).Tricky in Crow means problem-solving. The stories of observed crows-- obtaining a piece of salami hung from a string by reeling it up to where they perched, directing wolves to carrion so they would open the hide (something the bird could not do), mapping where a rival has cached food, and the 'lies' of experimental birds Hugin and Munin-- were just what I was looking for. All in all, this was a fascinating book, not to be missed by the amateur naturalist. (105 p.)Highly recommended; suitable for a gift.
What do You think about Crows: Encounters With The Wise Guys Of The Avian World (2007)?
I dabbled in this book, reading most of it, but skipping some bits that didn't interest me. It was a mixed bag of stories, folklore, mythology, poems, anecdotes, and research - all involving crows. I was hoping it would be thick with experiments and heavy on research - delving deeply into corvid intelligence - but it glosses over these things. I'm going to have to find something more satisfying for my inner ornithologist to feast on. Here's a neat excerpt, though:"Back in the lab, the biologists analyze the recording, tally the number of 'call types' used by each bird - a wonderful variety of gurgling, chortling, trilling, knocking, barking, 'quorking,' and bell-like peals - and then compare the repertoire of these new subjects with the sounds that are already on record."To date, the researchers have compiled a library of more than 64,000 vocalizations, elicited from 37 raven pairs. From this cacophony, they have distinguished 84 distinctly different calls, and the list continues to grow as each new pair of ravens is added to the choir..." (p. 88)Crows have language! But, different pairs use different sounds to communicate different things. Crows have crow dialects! And we? Have a crow dictionary! Quork!
—Arminzerella
This is a beautifully designed, thoughtful assortment of facts and anecdotes revolving around crows — part of the always enjoyable subset of popular science with a literary bent. I'd reference Diane Ackerman and Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, minus the autobiographical stuff.A bit confused by some of the disappointed reviews longing for a more serious ornithological study. Really? This is 105 pages long and filled with photos, illustrations and inset tales. Check out "Further Reading" (pp. 107-10) for just that. Savage counts a variety of academic references among her sources.I enjoyed this very much and miss the cranky wake-up calls the local crows gave me each morning in college — there are none in NZ. Thanks to my mom for sending this. My only minor complaint relates to layout, as some of those inset stories forced multiple pages between the start of a narrative sentence and its conclusion.
—Sienna
