See also
- Raven – Corvus species with the word "raven" in their common names
- Rook
- Jackdaw
- Eating crow
- Scarecrow
Set 03 of My
Bird
Favorites --- Crows Mean and Magnificent
Bob Jensen at
Trinity University
The descendents of my Uncle Millen Jensen sent maintain a family blog.
Pamela Jensen sent this picture of her new colt named Millen
In rural America crows and their raven cousins
may be the most common of birds --- they seem to live everywhere and squawk
loudly at one another beginning dawn
Unlike many species of birds crows stay up here in the mountains throughout the
harshest of winters
In the summer crows waddle awkwardly across our lawn in search of grubs ---
depriving our many moles of their favorite lunches
Deep snow thwarts pecking about on our lawn
That's Erika's excuse for throwing out food two or three times a day for crows
and our other wintering birds
Crows prefer meat scraps, but when hungry they, along with our huge blue jays,
will swarm about for scattered dried dog food we purchase in the market (the
kind without grain filler)
When we also scatter song-bird tiny seeds the crows gratefully leave most of
that for the smaller winter birds like our beloved chickadees, grosbeaks, and
finches
I think most of our daily crows are from one large
family having a patriarch we call Fred
Fred is the only one of the family who will continue eating within a few feet of
me while I working outside --- such as when I'm shoveling snow
They hang about most of the daylight hours; I've no idea where they
disappear to at night or where they hide their young
I've never seen a baby crow
Crows tend to live with their families for
generations; I suspect for breeding purposes they do join other families,
A grouping of crows oddly enough is called a "murder of crows" (has nothing to
do with death)
There's an excellent mystery book (and film) by John Grisham called A Murder
of Crows
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Murder_of_Crows_(film)
I really liked this most clever book and film although the content seems to have
zero to do with the title
You rarely, if ever, see a lone crow in the trees and lawns; They're always in a
"murder" looking to murder
Crow --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crow
See also
- Raven – Corvus species with the word "raven" in their common names
- Rook
- Jackdaw
- Eating crow
- Scarecrow
Corvid Research (Behavior of Crows and Ravens) --- https://corvidresearch.blog
Crows, like a number of other animals that includes non-human primates, elephants, dolphins and other corvids, appear to respond strongly once they discover a dead member of their own species. Among these animals the responses can include: tactile investigation, communal gathering, vocalizing, sexual behaviors, or aggression. For people who live or work closely with animals it’s tempting to anthropomorphize these behaviors based on our opinions of how smart or emotional the animals we care about are. But as a scientist my job is to separate my personal feelings about animals, and use research techniques that allow me to objectively ask questions about animal behavior. By conducting field experiments and employing brain scanning techniques developed by our team, I hope to gain insight into the purpose of crow funerals. Perhaps they play a utilitarian purpose of learning about danger or social opportunities, or perhaps they are akin to the grieving process we experience as humans. The brain scanning technique we use allows us to peer into the brain of a living, thinking crow, without ever having to euthanize the animal.
Studies that provide bridges from humans to other animals are critical to fostering a culture that respects and protects the natural world, and this is one of the reasons I most enjoy working with crows. No matter their feelings for them, nearly everyone has a story about crows, even those people who otherwise feel quite separated from nature. The fact that they are conspicuous and thrive in all kinds of human dominated environments, means that crows are a uniquely accessible animal, and offer a wealth of opportunities to connect people of all interests and backgrounds to science. It’s my hope that our research will provide a more compassionate lens with which to understand crows, and contribute to a growing movement of corvid enthusiasts . . .
Crows are perhaps the smartest birds in the wild,
although brain scientists have no idea why their not the most retarded of birds
"How Can Crow's Be So Smart When They
Don't Have a Neocortex?" ---
http://nautil.us/issue/40/learning/why-neuroscientists-need-to-study-the-crow
Corvids, such as crows, ravens, and magpies, are among the most intelligent birds on the planet—the list of their cognitive achievements goes on and on—yet neuroscientists have not scrutinized their brains for one simple reason: They don’t have a neocortex. The obsession with the neocortex in neuroscience research is not unwarranted; what’s unwarranted is the notion that the neocortex alone is responsible for sophisticated cognition. Because birds lack this structure—the most recently evolved portion of the mammalian brain, crucial to human intelligence—neuroscientists have largely and unfortunately neglected the neural basis of corvid intelligence.
Continued in article (a fascinating study of crow learning and behavior)
Crows are mean in nature and pick on the smallest
and largest of other birds --- although I've never seen them take on any of our
wild turkeys
It might be that turkeys, like crows, are always in protective flocks rather
than being vulnerable all alone like hawks and eagles
In early spring there are frogs in the pond beside our cottage; By mid-summer
the crows have cleaned out all the frogs
Crows eat the eggs and small baby birds in nests --- which is perhaps why the
robins come by the hundreds in springtime to our lawn by never nest in our
bushes
Fortunately, the crows cannot seem to bother the
song birds (think wrens and bluebirds) who raise families in our 20 or so
birdhouses
I suspect this is because crows cannot get at the contents inside a bird house
A Story Without Pictures
I wish over and over that I had a camera on my desk the particular day a golden
eagle landed beside the well head in our front lawn.
I looked up from my desk to see my family of crows chasing a weary golden eagle
The exhausted eagle landed right in front of me and sat with its rear end
against a big rock beside our well head This beautiful bird with enormous talons
rested there for maybe 30 minutes It was protected from behind by the big rock
and from the front by its ferocious beak The rows waited threateningly in nearby
trees. Sadly that day I did not have a camera handy After becoming sufficiently
rested the eagle flew to the top of a nearby tree Sure enough my family of crows
commenced to dive bomb the bigger eatle At long last the eagle spread its
enormous wings and flew out over the valley with the crows in hot pursuit
A Story With Pictures
Early one morning when it was just growing daylight an owl crashed into our
front door ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Tidbits/Birds/Set02/BirdsSet02.htm
The winds have been ferocious up here on quite a few
days in both February and March
On Mt Washington about 28 miles away they reached over 130 mph (with is not
uncommon for the top of that mountain)
Set 01 of my favorite bird
pictures ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Tidbits/Birds/Set01/BirdsSet01.htm
Set 02 of my favorite bird pictures ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Tidbits/Birds/Set02/BirdsSet02.htm
Ducks on the Golf
Course
---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/tidbits/2009/tidbits090714.htm
Also see ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/tidbits/2009/tidbits090526.htm
From the University of Pittsburgh
Birds of
America (over 400 birds mounted online) ---
http://digital.library.pitt.edu/a/audubon/
The Darlington Digital Library (bird photographs) ---
http://digital.library.pitt.edu/d/darlington
Audubon Magazine - Multimedia ---
http://archive.audubonmagazine.org/multimedia/index.html
More of Bob Jensen's Pictures and
Stories
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Pictures.htm
Forwarded by my friend Jagdish Pathak at the University of Windsor in Canada
The lines of World renowned Poet and also a Nobel laureate, Rabindra Nath
Tagore.
He wrote (copied from Wikipedia English translation of original Bengali poem)
If they answer not to thy call walk alone,
If they are afraid and cower mutely facing the wall,
O thou unlucky one,
open thy mind and speak out alone.
If they turn away, and desert you when crossing the wilderness,
O thou unlucky one,
trample the thorns under thy tread,
and along the blood-lined track travel alone.
If they do not hold up the light when the night is troubled with storm,
O thou unlucky one,
with the thunder flame of pain ignite thy own heart
and let it burn alone.
Bob Jensen's Threads --- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/threads.htm
Bob Jensen's Home Page --- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/
On May 14,
2006 I retired from
Trinity University after a long and
wonderful career as an accounting professor in four universities. I was
generously granted "Emeritus" status by the Trustees of Trinity University. My
wife and I now live in a cottage in the White Mountains of New Hampshire ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/NHcottage/NHcottage.htm
Bob
Jensen's Blogs ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/JensenBlogs.htm
Current and past editions of my newsletter called New
Bookmarks ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookurl.htm
Current and past editions of my newsletter called
Tidbits ---
http://www.faculty.edu/rjensen/TidbitsDirectory.htm
Current and past editions of my newsletter called
Fraud Updates ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudUpdates.htm
Bob Jensen's past presentations and lectures
---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/resume.htm#Presentations
Our
address is 190 Sunset Hill Road, Sugar Hill, New Hampshire
Our cottage was known as the Brayton Cottage in the early 1900s
Sunset Hill is a ridge overlooking with
New Hampshire's White Mountains to the East
and Vermont's
Green Mountains to the West