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Comment by dbingham | Hacker News Reader

Crows also have vocal chords capable of producing human language, and - similar to parrots - they can learn human phrases in the right conditions.

My partner used to volunteer at the local Wildcare and they had an injured crow resident that they couldn't release named Da Vinci. Da Vinci would always greet visitors with "Hello! How are you? How are you?"

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I was staying in a hostel in the Philippines and they had a pet crow that would greet you, but he'd also fuck with you - or at least me. He'd say "Come here" over and over until I went over to him, then he'd turn away from me when I got there. As soon as I turned back away he'd say "come here" again. Funny little shit.

My wife and I used to return to the same place in the woods and would try to attract and feed crows. Once we were packed up and preparing to leave with crows watching us as my wife distributed more peanuts while she was trying to caw like them but I then found that the crows were changing some of their caws seemingly to mimic my wife's imitation and then purely by accident I coughed and a nearby crow clearly mimicked my cough!

I love crows, they have lots of character if you take time to observe them.

I had a similar experience. When I was a kid I used to buy grocery from a local store. There was a crow greeting every single customer with "Hello! Dinner yet? Dinner yet?". I think that's a good way to connect with local customers :)

When I was 12 or so we had a neighbor who had a pet raven or crow, not sure which. But this bird did the owners cigarette cough and gravel gert voice perfectly for 10 or so words.

Someone later gave the guy a mynah bird that had a 30 or so word vocabulary. The birds eventually taught each other the words and the cough.

It was pretty funny to walk past that house on a nice day and hear 3 cigarette coughs and hearing the mynah say happy halloween in a sort-of witch voice no matter the time of the year.

There is an American Crow in an enclosure at a local wildlife rescue. He can't be released because of his injuries, so he's one of the center's permanent residents. He won't speak on command, but he will immitate sounds he hears (he does a ringtone sort of sound) and he will say "American Crow" every so often.

There are lots of youtube videos of talking (and swearing) crows.

It's more likely to happen with parrots (since they can legally be kept as pets and interact with humans more closely), but crows have the brainpower for it.

Crows and Ravens can also sound very human. There are some videos on youtube that are pretty unnerving. Makes for good background to Poe's famous story.

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