CROW - CROWS STORIES
(excerpts from posts)
(If you want to retell any of the stories listed below, be sure to obtain permission from the copyright holder if the material is not in the public domain)

1) In Sendai in Japan, carion crows have developed a clever way to crack walnuts, which are too hard to be cracked by dropping them on stones. They pick up the walnuts, wait at a traffic intersection and watch the light. When it turns red, they swoop down and place the nuts under the wheels of a car, then they fly back. After the light has changed to green and the cars have crushed the nuts, they swoop down again and eat the pieces. Calcedonian crows are probably the most proficient makers of tools among animals after human beings. They carefully construct a number of saws and specialized pokers from leaves in order to hunt for grubs. Last year in an Oxford laboratory, a scientist gave two Calcedonian crows wires, one straight and one with a hook, in order to see if they could fugure out which one could draw up a wagon full of food. One crow immediately took the hook. The other crow systematically made a hook with the second wire to draw up the wagon. Chimpanzees and mokeys were given the same problem, and none could solve it. For more on this, see the delightful book Bird Brains by Candice Savage. Of, if you want to wait until September, you can see my forthcoming book Crow, a cultural history of crows and human being that will be published by Reaktion Books in England.

2) Interesting letter about science and crow folklore from a recent issue of Science.
-- Dave Aftandilian, Smart Crows Win Out, Science, 3 January 2002, p. 45
"There is a story about a smart crow, which has been told and retold to children in Indian households for many generations. A thirsty crow comes across a flask half filled with water. As it tries to drink the water through the narrow opening of the flask, the crow realizes that it cannot do so because the water level is lower than its beak can reach. Because the crow is smart, it comes up with a solution. It collects pebbles, one by one, and drops them into the flask. Gradually, the flask is filled with pebbles and the water level rises enough for the crow to be able to comfortably drink. The crow drinks the water and, satisfied, flies away. The moral of the story: be smart like this crow. I was wondering if the authors of the recent Brevia [article] "Shaping of hooks in New Caledonian crows" (A.A.S. Weir et al., 9 Aug., p. 981) could try out this experiment with a host of New Caledonian and perhaps some Indian crows. In my view, this experiment represents an even more complex problem-solving task. If successful, not only will it solidify their theory, it could also tell something about the origins of folklore."
-- Vishwas Parekh, Experimental Hematology, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, Memphis, TN

(This web page updated 5/9/03)