An investigation into the state of corvid–human relations

I like the fact that they are so ... observant. A specific crow (I recognize him due to the missing feathers around his collar) will spend a while sitting on a tree outside my window, observing me for no reason. I do feed them generally by leaving peanuts in a specific area in the backyard early in the morning, and I'm sure this one partakes in the feast; but I have never rewarded his presence in any form, and yet there he is, in the middle of the day, just hanging out on the branch of the leafless tree, just sitting there, observing me. If I turn around and make eye contact, he often flies away. But I can see him in the reflection on my ipad's screen, and if I don't turn around and make eye contact, he will stay there for a while. It is fun interacting with "smart" creatures who have their own personalities and active social lives.

Crows can remember a dangerous person and tell their friends about it. From "Social learning spreads knowledge about dangerous humans among American crows" (https://faculty.washington.edu/wirsinga/Cornell2011.pdf)

We exposed wild crows to a novel ‘dangerous face’ by wearing a unique mask as we trapped, banded and released 7 –15 birds at five study sites near Seattle, WA, USA. An immediate scolding response to the dangerous mask after trapping by previously captured crows demonstrates individual learning, while an immediate response by crows that were not captured probably represents conditioning to the trapping scene by the mob of birds that assembled during the capture. Later recognition of dangerous masks by lone crows that were never captured is consistent with horizontal social learning. Independent scolding by young crows, whose parents had conditioned them to scold the dangerous mask, demonstrates vertical social learning.

> Even when humans have a friendship—or something that feels like it—with a crow, the relationship happens on the wild animal’s terms. They visit when they want to, and they may disappear from our life suddenly.

It goes also the other way around. I do not leave a note to my neighborhood crows when I move town.

I think that it has nothing to do in which terms it happens but the communication barrier. It is very possible that the crows signal that they are leaving for good but we are just missing the message. And my reason to not leave them a note is because they cant read, if they could I would.

I don't know the answer, generally speaking, but we've got a pair that pop onto the back fence every morning waiting for their peanuts. I think they're multigenerational, as I have reasons to suspect that the "original" Mr. Peanut has passed on. Anyway, the bold one will come sit with me in the front yard. When I walk the dog, they'll follow me for a bit, flying a few feet off the ground right in front of me, I assume to make their presence known and get a piece of dog biscuit (which I oblige). They have never gotten obnoxious about it by crowing at me, just silently hanging around: "if you could spare a bit of dog food, kind sir..."

Friends? It's probably transactional from the crow's POV, but OTOH they hang out on the fence and just sit sometimes even if there are peanuts on the ground. I enjoy seeing them, though. I will say, though, that after many pounds of peanuts not a single one of the little bastards has ever brought me a present, as is advertised. :-)

We have quite a few birds around our house and it has been quite gratifying to see how much they accept your presence after a while. While making coffee yesterday morning, there were three tauhau hopping around in the tree outside the window, less than a meter away, unconcerned. If I go outside they'll keep to about 2 meters. When I'm working in the garage, a piwakawaka often comes in to watch me. If I'm digging in the garden there are a few (I'm going to guess starlings) that watch me digging in the garden close enough I'm surprised they don't land on me. As soon as I stop digging, they're in the dirt rummaging for what I might have turned up. Collectively they have all decided that I'm not out to get them so just go about their business. Except for the piwakawaka, which does seem to go out of its way to just watch me make things.

It possibly helps that I have a dog that will not tolerate a cat on the property and seems to believe that birds don't exist.

Crows are fascinating creatures. My wife read that they will chase hawks and eagles away, so she started putting food out for the crows near the tree where they gather (we have chickens and ducks that we don't want the hawks near).

Now they bring trinkets as gifts and leave them near the tree. We also had a crow in the past that would make barking noises when it saw our dogs and freak them out. I'm convinced it was messing with them.

A friend is someone you’ll spend time around given other options. If you’ve spent any time getting to know crows (or jays, or any other corvids), it’s quite obvious this is the case. I had a scrub jay who’d perch on my foot while I read in the morning. I considered him a friend, and by that standard, he me.

They are, until a murder takes up residency in a tree outside your apartment in Emeryvile. Then they are cool roommates you have to get away from else you lose your sanity.

A murder of crows lives about 200 m away and whenever a predatory bird enters their perimeter, they swarm it until vacates the area. Everything from osprey, hawks, vultures, and eagles, they leave Great Blue Herons alone though.

I don't want to go out of my way to befriend them, because they may harass people who are not me on the property.

We started feeding a small group of crows that hung out in our neighborhood but after a while decided to back off to only occasionally because their constant presence kept other types of birds away from our backyard. They are very talkative and I often banter back and forth with them saying hello when they occasionally visit now and have taken to showing up when I take walks to squawk at me and i assume to say hello. Very fascinating creatures

I also tell my young daughter to always be nice to them, because they will pass information not only among themselves but also down generations.

the article gets my up vote for at least admitting some bird scientists think a lot of this may be projection (one I am also fond of making) and that crows are a lot less into us than we might think.

They forgot to mention the most famous corvids in mythology, Odin’s familiars Huginn and Muninn

This is cool. Makes me wonder what could be done to foster the friendship aside from food. Are there any sorts of games/activities one would could play with a corvid solely for mutual entertainment? And would the bird think of it in those terms?

The crows around my house are generally cool unless I do something they don't like and then they'll remember my face for all of eternity and mob me whenever I am outside.

This author has their own AM radio Americana narrative style with peculiar flourishes repeated throughout, but it's so refreshing compared to LLMs it's worth slowing down and noticing how they play with the language as the crow does a shiny wire, resulting in far higher perplexity at each bend in phrase than the machines seem capable of no matter the prompt.

There has been a flock of crows in my parents neighborhood for decades. They command a large area and push out many other birds, especially birds of prey. They are noisy and annoying. When I visit mom with my dog, they swoop at my dog. Honestly feeling like the neighborhood would be better without them.

We have problems here with crows destroying lawns to dig up grubs.

A local sod farmer told me they shoot one and leave it dead in the field. All the other crows show up for a crow funeral and when they leave they dont come back. They remember the crow that died there and treat the area as dangerous.

I feed them all the time and they recognize me.

They love chicken strips which feels wrong. But they like what they like.

They may become the primary intelligent species of the planet some day - since the evil LLM will never be able to predict their communications and will not be able to wipe them out

"seems" does a lot of work here. But rational analysis tells us that, whatever the relationship is, it's not friendship.

Perhaps new levels of transcendant coexistence could be achieved through the use of bird qualudes.

In Australia, they attack random people.

I mean; they cause no harm unless you are a farmer or something, do they?

Yes.