Up ahead you see them on the road or phone lines and then, as you approach, the gathering of birds wheels away like a school of fish. They’re leaving. We’re staying. Winter is coming. Luckily, we still have the chickadees and crows. My two favorite birds. Here’s Robert Krulwich on crows:
All In is a place for everyone who works at NCPR to share behind the scenes activity, and surprising, curious, lovely or distinctly local tidbits from our travels around the region. We’ll post the best of what we find online, too. From time to time, you may hear from others—if you’d like to write an entry, send it to [email protected]. What makes this place what it is? How do we connect to each other and the world? That’s what ALL IN is all about.
I saw an hour long program about experiments with crows in different parts of the world, including the mask experiment.
It confirmed what I’ve always felt about crows and ravens. Very smart birds.
We humans need to recognize we are not the only smart ones on the planet. We should also remember an old truth that applies to brains as well as to other body parts: size isn’t as important as how you use it.
Whenever I’m lead to ponder the special intelligence of the family Corvidae, this inevitably comes to mind:
[…]
“Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend!” I shrieked, upstarting–
“Get thee back into the tempest and the Night’s Plutonian shore!
Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken!
Leave my loneliness unbroken! — quit the bust above my door!
Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!”
Quoth the raven, “Nevermore.”
…the penultimate stanza of “The Raven” by E.A.Poe, which is, IMHO, one of the greatest of English language poems,
I saw an hour long program about experiments with crows in different parts of the world, including the mask experiment.
It confirmed what I’ve always felt about crows and ravens. Very smart birds.
We humans need to recognize we are not the only smart ones on the planet. We should also remember an old truth that applies to brains as well as to other body parts: size isn’t as important as how you use it.
Whenever I’m lead to ponder the special intelligence of the family Corvidae, this inevitably comes to mind:
[…]
“Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend!” I shrieked, upstarting–
“Get thee back into the tempest and the Night’s Plutonian shore!
Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken!
Leave my loneliness unbroken! — quit the bust above my door!
Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!”
Quoth the raven, “Nevermore.”
…the penultimate stanza of “The Raven” by E.A.Poe, which is, IMHO, one of the greatest of English language poems,