Photographer captures 'odd but exciting' crow behaviour known as anting
cbc.ca
cbc.ca
> Some birds will sit still on an anthill and patiently allow the creatures to crawl freely through their feathers. At other times they have been seen to pick the ants up with their beaks and rub themselves with the tiny insects.
> Sensing a threat, the ants shoot a spray of formic acid from their abdomens or anal glands which gets absorbed into the bird's body and acts as a natural insecticide.
> ..A widely held theory..maintains that birds use the ants to soothe irritated skin during periods of heavy feather molting, while another theory suggests it controls parasites which live in the bird's plumage.
https://www.statnews.com/2020/09/24/crows-possess-higher-int...
Crows are supposedly more intelligent/aware than other animals, and with awareness comes existential dread or whatever you want to call it.
Lots of humans use drugs to alleviate this and I think it’s plausible that crows do something similar. Hopefully I’m wrong and it’s a more uplifting reason.
I can see that
Perhaps they aren't intentionally getting drunk, but merely trying to get those calories and being drunk is a side effect?
Being drunk as a bird wouldn't seem to be a good idea from a survival point of view ...
Being drunk as a human is also not a good idea from a survival point of view given how often drunk people kill themselves doing stupid things.
Crows engage in play and form complex plans that show they understand that actions have consequences so it doesn't seem unreasonable that they might occasionally decide to get drunk and roll around on the floor screaming.
In a very back of the envelope kind of way, here’s why: Alcohol is metabolized not as nutrition but as poison, and while yes, ethanol is very calorific, the calories derived from are lost (mostly) as heat. And, because of the metabolic pathways utilized, other important substances required by cells are depleted (products of the Pentose Phosphate Pathway - PPP) in the quest to detoxify alcohol. Running the PPP is generally an energy intense process, so you’re at a net loss when al said and done. This can partly help explain why chronic alcoholics are not overweight. This is excluding the calorie debt owed to repairing cell damage from the cytotoxic effects of alcohol.
If anyone’s interested, I can recommend some Biochemistry textbooks for a deep dive.
EDIT: Forgot to mention, partly thanks to the metabolic reasons, alcohol results in hypoglycemia, so it is unlikely that the bird would experience feelings of satiety after imbibing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbXJunKCq60
here it is with some awful americanized dubbing
Surely you’ve heard of drug/alcohol abuse referred to as an “escape”, no? Existential dread/angst is just another thing to try to escape from.
[…]
The National Wild Turkey Federation says anting has been seen in more than 200 species of birds worldwide.”
Would be interesting to know whether all those >200 species are considered smarter than average birds.
In that case, I’m inclined to think it serves one of the utilitarian functions that they mention, as it seems unlikely that all those species would have crow-level intelligence.
It's kind of fascinating to watch. It seems like the crows are trying new strategies every new day. The much larger seagulls are wasting lots of energy in a kinda stupid way, the crows are chilling most of the time.
The theory I heard is the bald eagle(s) could easily take them on but they risk injury and the crows will try to mess them up. So the eagles just don’t risk it and move on + hunt things that don’t fight back (like rabbits).
also, I can swear that crows taunt my dog who does not like them and will bark/try to catch them. it’s like watching a comedy show with the crows doing something to provoke the dog and literally “laughing” afterwards.
Around here harriers also get harassed by the crows.
It must have had a nest in the tree above the sidewalk.
It's definitely my least favorite bird.
But the one time I walked down the wrong sidewalk in Point Grey (so Vancouver 'proper') during springtime, the back of my head gets smacked.
[1] Perhaps the Burnaby/Willingdon crows consider the absurd amounts of crow shit on cars, sidewalks, buildings, etc. to be adequate warning? The stench after a rain is... eugh.
We have a lot of blue jays, too, and even though they're notoriously territorial, I can't remember seeing a blue jay/crow altercation. Maybe their reputation precedes them? I don't have any real guesses.
There are 2 common seagulls here who get very excited sometimes. They fly around and make short calls in sync with eachother. Last week I saw them chasing a hooded crow around just outside my window, but I'm kinda unsure if it's play since I've seen them sit relatively close to each other without caring.
But for some very strange reason, one of the hooded crow seems to HATE me. If I walk down the street here he'll follow and scream at me. He'll sometimes sit outside my window from afar and watch me too. He'll follow me as far as his territory goes (around 300 meters in diameter)
It's the strangest thing that's ever happened to me. It's like I did something really bad to him.
I've gone out to see him a few times out of curiosity. I tried giving him food and he does take it eventually, but it doesn't seem like that's what he's there for.
Eating food overrides, which means with just a small handful of goose food you can wander up to a nest and do whatever you like without being threatened by mother goose.
Beware the moment the food runs out, defend-the-nest mode is reenabled and you'll get viciously attacked.
Kinda odd - I guess no predators think to make use of this by bringing some food!
"Smart Crow uses cars to crack nuts in Akita, Japan" https://youtu.be/NenEdSuL7QU
"Are Crows the Ultimate Problem Solvers?" https://youtu.be/cbSu2PXOTOc
Quite an appropriate name. Reminds me of the two most distinguished geologists of our day, Johnny Rockman and Bobby Boulders.
I don't get it?
Cheatham
Took a series 7 course [stockbroker license] few years back, I remember that was the teachers goto example firm.
Greico...John Thomas... fun times, then I realized I have a soul that prevents me from scamming people out of their last cent just to make a payment on a Benz or pay for weekly supply of hookers and cocaine...
Only way to win the game, is not to play.
Defense Attorney Justin Volk V
Defense Attorney II Heronimus B. Blind
Defense Attorney III Donnatella Dicoppas
Defense Attorney IV Gil T. Azell
The full etymology:
>The name is derived from the German zum rothen Schild (with the old spelling "th"), meaning "at the red shield", in reference to the house where the family lived for many generations (in those days houses were designated not by numbers but by signs displaying different symbols or colours).
(I'm not saying this to be snarky towards you or anything like that, and I personally appreciate seeing such corrections. Genuinely just curious if there's a term for this specific sort of thing, since it's common on HN and reddit.)
From my POV, I like seeing comments that facilitates exploration into an observation so was happy to share the link!
* I did indeed see a crow "anting" one time, and was initially as bewildered as the photographer in TFA. Surprisingly I was able to get much closer to the bird than they normally allow, but stepped back as soon as I saw it wasn't actually in distress.
* The best way to get close to a crow is to back up towards it; they are extremely wary of eye contact and will immediately become alert if you look at them or move towards them with your body facing forward. Over time, I used this method to get close to them and demonstrate that I wasn't a threat. I "trained" the crows to recognize that if they let me get close, I'll drop some food for them. After a while you don't have to do the backwards shimmy, but it's a good default strategy for approaching naturally skittish creatures.
* If you feed crows in exactly the same place every day, they will recognize you and fly to the "feeding spot". Crows pay very close attention to your movements and behaviors, and like most animals will try to develop a mental model to figure out when you're going to feed them. If presented with consistent causal behaviors, the birds will essentially train themselves.
* Crows are very sensitive to changes in appearance and behavior. I switched jackets one day and was met with immediate suspicion.
* My most fruitful experiment was right before the lockdown. I would stand in a specific location for a little while and watch the birds (watching them from a distance piques their curiosity and alertness to you). With them watching, I would pretend to plant food somewhere nearby and then move away. The crows would fly over, and I would immediately reward them. After a few weeks of this, I began gesturing towards nearby objects with my hand, and the birds would investigate the object immediately after I move away. After consistently rewarding this behavior, I was able to advance to "pointing to a semi-nearby object with my arm". One crow eventually figured out how to fly to the object I was pointing at, and I did a few successful tests to make sure the crow would fly specifically to the object I was pointing at, and not at some other nearby object. I have yet to train them to land on distant objects, but I'm hopeful!
* Crows like pistachios (they have multiple techniques for cracking the shell), and love cashews and peanuts (unsalted are best for the birds). They'll almost always opt for the "more convenient" snack, especially when they're competing with other crows. I try to reward the "bravest" crows first, by slowly moving away from the food pile until one crow moves in. Like other animals, crows also learn by observing the reward loop from a distance, and you can use this to get a large number of them to trust you.
* Crows are very curious when they feel safe, and it is mutually entertaining to set up unusual scenarios (such as hiding food inside or under tricky objects, like empty water bottles or closed paper containers).
That has been on my bucket list ever since. Not a whole phalanx, but I would like to have a crow friend like Patera Silk did. They migrate through my area in midwinter, so I will have to get some unsalted nuts this year (and the next, and the one after that…)
Another fun one: a gaggle of geese
"Venery" in this context means hunting game animals, a usage that dates back to the late Middle Ages. Terms of venery are the conventional nouns used to designate collections of game animals.
They're colorful, as you already know. There are a bunch of them that we've inherited from the late Middle Ages.
On the other hand, there are a bunch more of them with more recent origin, presumably because amusement with the inherited ones has motivated lovers of words to coin new ones.
James Lipton wrote a book entitled An Exaltation of Larks collecting a lot of terms of venery, both ancient and modern. If you are amused by "a murder of crows" and "a parliament of owls" then you'd probably like the book.
Personally, I've never heard 'rave of ravens'. I've always been partial to conspiracy of ravens as the grouping of choice.
Other favorites include: * Parliament of owls * Convocation of eagles * Ostentation of peacocks
and unfortunately i have a photo of some fat naked dude sitting on an anthill smiling scratching his beard covered in ants so this behaviour isn't really restricted to crows. it's like a thing in Finland or something. It is the first result for 'man sitting on ants' in google image search but it's blurred out and you have to click through to see
Southwestern Indiana has some ecosystems that are unusual for the state, including a bald cypress swamp remnant. I visited Hovey Lake near that swamp two consecutive early mornings, and both days I heard an unusual (to me) bird call right at sunrise that I was able to identify as a fish crow.
We don't have typically have fish crows elsewhere in the state, not even sure they're common at Hovey Lake, so I have no idea whether this sunrise behavior is common, but I did find a similar story from much further south.
https://meadowblog.net/2018/01/good-morning-from-a-fish-crow...
Men, most who don't wear cosmetics, don't spontaneously stick their faces against ant hills. The women who don't wear cosmetics, either, don't seem to cover their faces in ants.
I can't believe that people are actually taking that comment from the parent seriously. All I can say is that people tend to believe whatever they read.
And then there were "beeing" which are the cyclists who do the above while also rocking the cycle from left to right -- that's more like bees in their pants.