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Comment by adamnemecek | Hacker News Reader

If you find this interesting, you should really look into the intelligence of crows. They've been observed to remember human faces, wait on traffic lights, plan, and a whole bunch of things that are very impressive.

And don't even get me started on _jackdaws_.

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They've even learned to pick up coins and use them in a vending machine in exchange for rewards: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qSsVBPh9Lo

I even remember reading that they were trained to pick up trash in exchange for food.

Corvids (crows, ravens, magpies, jackdaws) are pretty bright. Some of them also have quite a bit of voice control. Like parrots, they can speak human words if trained.

https://youtu.be/rIX_6TBeph0

Is there any evidence this isn't fake?

Why are you assuming it's fake? "Crows and ravens can imitate human voices" is an established fact, not an unusual claim.

I am skeptical of the specific video he linked, not of the well established fact that Raven's can vocalize.

Quoth the raven "nevermore".

He does sound a little like a voice synthesiser, but I think that's mostly because both birds and computers speak English poorly. Here's another example: https://youtu.be/AfsnHVaScjg

I understand that Raven's can vocalize, I am just skeptical of that original video you linked. I am just wondering if there was evidence that it was authentic since that Youtube user's videos seem to go so far beyond what I've seen Raven's do before.

I think he sounds like a voice synthesizer because the owner probably "trained" the raven to say nevermore by letting a computer program repeat that word occasionally over long periods of time. Thus he learned to mimic the synthesizer sound, not a real human saying it. You can also hear the bird repeat some notification sounds a "waka waka" sound that sounds like Pacman.

Re: voice synth, I think that's just an artifact of how birds vocal chords (or whatever gizmo they've got in there) work. The timbre of the voice is going to be different than that of a primate.

EDIT: you can even hear it in their natural calls, they have a buzzing, saw-like texture in the upper-mid and high range.

The Australian lyrebird is perhaps the best bird mimic:

https://youtu.be/KOFy8QkNWWs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BbRS9K4rZ8Y :)

PS: I think that crow actually said "thank you"?

Crows definitely have good voice control. A local nature preserve and wildlife rehab center here has a couple of captive American crows (they can't be returned to the wild because of injuries). They mimic human voices very well. One of frequently says "American crow".

This Raven speaking Finnish is pretty cool: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yOVYMQP7gMM

A raven, speaking Finnish? Sounds like a bad omen!

Cycling to work one day and while stopped at some lights at a major Dublin intersection I noticed a crow drop a half eaten apple just ahead of the stop line.

Looking back after the lights turned green I could see the apple had been crushed by a car and the crow was gobbling up the delicious juicy apple mush.

In Japan they use traffic lights to collect cracked nuts

https://youtu.be/BGPGknpq3e0

I used to have a really awesome "symbiosis" with a flock of crows. For four years, while going to work, I passed every day down a desolate black road, near a walnut tree. At first, I'd grab the walnuts from the ground and crows'd get angry and even dive-bomb me. However, as time passed by, we started understanding each other - when they see me coming, they'd drop walnuts on the ground and wait for me to smash their shells open. As a reward for my effort, they won't mind me grabbing a few walnuts for myself.

Theres a youtube clip of a crow solving a puzzle that little children struggle with - cant find it now as at work but dont think it would be hard to find for anyone interested

I guess you mean this:

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=AVaITA7eBZE

This is not nearly as complex a sequence, but has a bit of tool making. Specifically, bending a wire into a hook to retrieve food:

https://youtu.be/TtmLVP0HvDg

That is fascinating. But notice that the researcher makes an elementary mistake: he failed to screen himself from the bird's sight.

>And don't even get me started on _jackdaws_

Top level trolling

Hmm, I found it a rather distracting inside joke. I can happily live without reading Reddit memes in this forum.

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