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I have a group of crows that show up on the property on a daily basis for fish and bread if I leave some bread ends out or have any dead fish. Love to watch them. Anyway when a group of friends were here to ice fish we discussed how intelligent they can be. One of them sent me the following video that shows how smart and adaptable they can be. I think you'll be amazed!

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=357090994407529

Cecil Crows actually share some of the same higher bench marks of intelligence that very few living creatures have. I seen a show not long ago talking about how crows were smart enough to make and use tools. One was smart enough to get a wire, bend it into a hook like shape and then use it to retrieve food. Another was smart enough to devise a multistep process in order to aquire food. Interesting creatures to me.

Search for the NOVA that aired on PBS about crows then you will realize how smart they actually are.

Many years ago, my brother, who is even older than Dave Davidson, came home with a baby crow that he supposedly found -- he also did that with some baby skunks, raccoons, and other critters, but that is a whole 'nother story.

He raised the crow as a pet throughout the spring and summer. It could almost talk. As it got a little older and more independent, it got a whole lot bolder.

One of its favorite spring/summer pastimes was to steal clothes pins, long before we had clothes driers. Some clothespins were my mother's. Many were at neighboring farms. Nobody was happy with my brother's crow.

Against my brother's wishes, my dad tried and tried to kill that crow. I'm sure a few neighbors tried also. Our dairy barn was over a third-of-a-mile from the house, and the crow would sit on a pasture fence post near the barn -- taunting my dad each morning. It got to about Dad = Zero, Crow = 5000.

I believe it was the next spring when we moved into town, with one of the skunks and most of the kittens raised by our momma calico cat.

I know they get real smart when they are hunted. You cannot use the same tactic twice and expect to kill many...

Sure is wasn't a baby pterodactyl?

They can recognize faces that do them harm.

Must be why they fly away, cause I have done harm to a lot of crows over the years...

Cecil, we knew a dairyman outside of Corona, CA. He was in the flight path of a huge number of crows when they flocked up for the winter. They decimated his silage piles looking for corn. It wasn't what they ate, it was what they left behind....

It was common for 2 of us to kill over 100 per day using an electronic caller and a couple dozen decoys. I stopped using the dogs to retrieve them when one crow latched on to Reba's lip and I had to pry it's beak open to take the bird from her. She let loose of the bird, but it wouldn't let loose of her. A trainer said that I had to watch out for a wounded crow pecking at the eyes of the dog that retrieved it.

Can you blame 'em?

Not in the least!

I think it was on a taxidermy website but one poster was bragging about a way to kill more crows was to stake down several wounded ones and the others will come to it's aid or in curiosity. Call me a tree hugger but that's just plain wrong in my book. I've never been into tormenting animals. If they are to be killed it has to be quick and merciful.

Well, as an admitted crow killer from way back, I know that an owl decoy perched on a fencepost will draw them in.....especially with a recording of a crow fight playing on loudspeaker.

And we always left the crows where they fell while shooting....they would swoop in and go after the owl decoy, and a few dead birds laying around the fencepost would really set em' off.

Skillet shot!!!!!
Name the movie......



Answer> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hplpQt424Ls&list=PL46FB178E8BEABAB8

"The Birds" ????? Boy that was a low budget flick!

Correct! Low budget, yes; but consider that it was done long before computer animation was even a figment of anyone's imagination.

Yeah at first thought how tacky the films imposed on each other were to make it look like the birds were attacking the kids, but then I realized that was pretty darn good for the technology they had.

Skillet Shot....
Hey Kelly - I like that - first time I have heard that term since hunted Blue Quail in West Texas years ago..
George

Yes, it's an old phrase that describes the generally unacceptable practice of shot-gunning a covey of quail while they're huddled on the ground. It's not spoken too often any more; and hopefully the practice has also subsided.
In the literal sense, I guess the term is only appropriate for the above photo if one intends to eat crow - which I do quite often - but only figuratively.

sprkplug we have done the same using a hawk decoy and record player for crows. Best way to keep them coming in is to wing one and have it squawking on the ground. Cecil yes they do come and quickly to a wounded member. Odd thing was a couple times in the melee we had live hawks come in and take out crows. Like a rocket out of the blue - a flash and then crow feathers followed by the high pitched hawk whistle.

No surprise there as the ones I observe are a tight family unit until the offspring go off on their own.

I wonder why some migrate in massive destructive flocks while others like mine seem to say in the area year around?

I have noticed they sometimes run off a GBH which makes me happy. One bird they do not tolerate are buzzards.

On a funny note I was on a European trip back in 2001 and got to see the ravens that are taken care of by the British royal family. They're not afraid of people but you don't want to get too close. I know from experience as I nearly got bit! The birds obviously different than our crows are much bigger and have a different shaped beak.