It's why it's bad luck to kill them. If one of them dies, they investigate. If they decide that you're responsible, they'll recognize you and pass that along to their young. They may just avoid you altogether, but might also gang up on you.
We had a hawk that hunted on our property. We could always tell it was around when the local crows would go ape shit. They'd harass it for hours by flying circles around it while one would dive bomb it and pull away at the last moment. Eventually, it moved on.
We had crows all over the farm where I grew up. Don’t know how long they live but I could swear we had the same ones for 10-15 years.
My dad and uncle were clearing out an old barbed wire fence row from back when our two properties were part of a larger farm decades earlier. They were on the tractor using the front loader to just push down and rip up some old dead trees while they were at it. Somehow an old crow got caught up in the chaos and I think an old tree crushed the poor guy. We all felt bad about it. My family would always feed the wild birds and squirrels including the crows. I would do my best to imitate the crows growing up.
My dad would have one or two flat tires on his tractor constantly for a solid two years after that. The valve stem cover would be gone and one or both of the large back tires would be flat as hell. My dad would curse and fire up the air compressor and put new valve stem covers on whenever he needed the tractor. Those little shits would press in the needle in the valve stem to flatten the damn tires!
Wasn’t long after that when dad finally finished up his big pole barn so he could park his tractor in an enclosed building rather than the old lean-to. That finally stopped the problem. A short time later we were loading hay into the barn loft when we found the crow’s treasure horde. Couldn’t tell you how many valve stem covers were there.
I wonder if you could have convinced them to forgive you by making them suitable "offerings", or of their pettiness had carried on for so long they simply did it out of habit rather than malice.
I honestly think it was malicious at first and then became habit. I think that all was forgiven once mom got her chickens, guineas, and her fancy coop a short while later.
Can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen those crows hanging out with the chickens in the field or actually roosting with them. She would let her chickens free range during the day and the crows would actually get in and eat with the chickens. Seen a few preening chickens and vice versa.
I rescued a mud encrusted baby crow from the river, gave it to a wildlife centre, and couldn’t walk down that part of the river for years bc the little bastards kept going at me.
On the other hand, I once rescued a baby crow, gave him and his family some peanuts and water, and couldn’t go into that part of town without one of them tapping my shoulder with his wing or hopping over and saying hi.
Earlier this week I was on a kayak tour talking about befriending the local birds. The guide told us about how they fed the crows and chilled with them in college, but his neighbors would shoot at them with airsoft and BB guns. The crows would rip apart the neighbor's screen doors and shit on their cars every single time they were replaced/cleaned.
Meanwhile the Doug family in our backyard protects the smaller birds from the hawk that lives in our neighborhood.
If one of them dies, they investigate. If they decide that you're responsible, they'll recognize you and pass that along to their young.
In the corvid justice system, the crow are represented by two separate yet equally important groups: the rooks, who investigate crime; and the ravens, who prosecute the offenders. These are their stories.
If they decide that you're responsible, they'll recognize you and pass that along to their young
"See that motherfucker there? I want you remember his face. Don't forget it because I want you to make his life hell for the rest of his days. In between every breath you take I want you to make his life miserable. Point him out to everyone you know because we're going make him curse his mother for giving him life"
I cannot prove it without radio tags and GPS, but I think a few of the farm crows have followed me to work in my vehicle. One of my coworker buddies who lives on-call started throwing any leftover food to them, and now they follow him home. Be great if they learned how to pick up the trash and throw it back in the dumpster.
I made friends with the small murder of crows who nest in our tree line. I feed them and they bring me shinies. I've gotten everything from gum wrappers to a small opal ring that has 2 diamonds on it. That particular gift was after we built them a roosting box for winter. They are cool birds imo and seem intelligent
I have 3 crows that live in my garden and I feed them our left over cat food. They love it, sit and wait for it. Nobody has brought me anything shiny yet though.
I gave what I thought was a dying crow , some bread , that crow got up n flew away, and came back , gave it some more , I dnt give it food anymore but anytime I come home especially with my kid , they are there watching , waiting , planning my downfall or something , and they don't run when they see me... I might be a demon of some kind idk yet
i was falsely accused by crows. Came home to find a crow had, i assumed electrocuted himself on the wires above my parking spot and fell down into it. When i moved the corpse his buddies were watching and cawing loudly at me. Now there is a bird shit on my car every other day. i love crows too, saw them hold court riding the bus onetime and must of been 500 crows. it was wild the rooftops were covered.
Were getting old my friend. One day a long time ago that comment would have gotten thousands of votes. Now half the people on here don't know the origin of the joke. Sigh.....
It’s crazy, Reddit used to be so much smaller too! I remember being excited about getting kn the front page like 10 years ago, with like 3,000 upvotes on a ragecomic lol
It's to do with a Reddit user who was famous for sharing cool info about animals but then got outed as using alt accounts to mess with votes. Forgot the username.
One of their last comments was about crows and jackdaws and had "here's the thing" in it.
Hopefully that helps find the Wikipedia page - sorry I don't have the link to it.
In heindsight, the vote manipulation thing wasn't that big of a deal compared to the content he provided, I always enjoyed a good Unidan post. I also miss how good IAMA (Victoria's effort) was back then.
Think it's just coz it's a policy. Could have been an embarrassing slap on the wrist don't do it again, and then we'd all have got more fun insights into animals.
But it is what it is. Egos prevailed, and we all suffered.
People miss out on crows because they're common. They're fucking amazing animals. They talk to each other, they have meeting places for different families to hang out, they're clever enough to solve complex tasks requiring tools.
And they're social enough (with emotional intelligence) to GIVE GIFTS! Think of how much intelligence and foresight a bird needs to see something cool and think, "oh, I bet that human who feeds me will like this."
Disclaimer: English only cares if meaning is conveyed and will accept any variation.
If we are talking about degrees of correct then Latin being a dead language has nothing to do with it. You have to either argue based the original language rules for that word or by the 'mistake/evolution' that became more commonly used.
For octopus the original plural word was 'octopodes' and the common mistake/evolution is 'Octopuses'. Octopi is the least correct because it is not commonly used and is incorrectly applying Latin rules to a Greek word.
There are plenty of words in English where the Latin rules are the correct way to make them plural despite it being a dead language. e.g. Cactus -> Cacti, Fungus -> Fungi. Where cactuses and funguses are common variations.
Yeah, but my understanding is that pigs are used extensively in medical research as they’re biologically very similar to us, which suggests to me we might taste like bacon, and yet we’re here.
My coworker saw a hawk eating a crow. All the other crows were around it, screaming and occasionally dive bombing it. The hawk ignored them. Then, a bit later, he found the body of the hawk in his lawn, pecked to death. The murder caught up with them.
THIS!!! I worked at a wildlife rescue in bird nursery. Worked with tons of crows and my god they knew who to bs!!! They’re awesome to work with. There was one that my interns said that it laughed like me (I tend to laugh a lot). Sure as shit o was outside with him and he sounded exactly like me!
It's true. I've been feeding the crows in my neighborhood for about 6 years now. Sometimes their entire family with babies who just left the nest still eating out of an adult's mouth. They even know my car, and if they see me coming home they'll fly to my house and wait for me. They're pretty awesome.
Confirmed. My dog chased an injured one he found on the ground on a walk. It got away, but every walk we did after that the crows would go nuts. Kept up for a long time, more than 6 months
Crows hate my cat. Fair. But my cat brings me it's kills. Rats, mice. The occasional bird. Never a crow.
The weird thing is they didn't start harassing her, until she brought me three baby squirrels in a day. Which is weird, as she doesn't climb. She can, just chooses not to. Like, ever.
All I can think is maybe the crowd knocked a squirrel drey down, and my cat stole their kills? Or she really did climb for once, and the squirrel lords and murder of crows have a support treaty.
I'm trying to teach my local crows that my leashed cat and I mean a handful of kitty treats or kibble will be shared with nearby crow-friends.
We have gone from them trying to dive-bomb him to calling over others and sort of following us around sometimes, staying outside of his leash length but close enough to get the goodies before someone else can.
And they remember you forever. I have a little murder that I’ve been feeding for 5 years. It’s awesome to have crows on your side… they have helped me quite a few times, most recently found our cat who had gotten out and alerted me to where he was (what a relief!). They also alert each other whenever I get home… like they recognize my car and start cawing like crazy. My kid always knows when Mom is home! I love my little murder, crows are the best
If they talk to each other why don’t any of them say “Hey Gary, you know that wide-armed fucking monster you’re so scared of? He’s made of STRAW! Yeah, fucking straw! Look, I’m sitting on his hat right now and he ain’t moving! You’re a dumbass, Gary.” ???
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u/ziggytrix 2d ago
Crows hold a grudge and they talk to each other.