A very clever crow
One of the readers of this blog recently made a comment on a previous article about clever crows. Here is what he said:
We watched a crow today land on our mailbox (faux wooden stump) and pull out a letter from amongst a pile and fly off with it. The envelope was white with a stamp and a yellow address change sticker but nothing out of the ordinary.
The crow flew next door holding the envelope and then flew to the telephone pole where it started to attempt to “open it?†rip it. It lost it’s grip and the letter fell to the ground.
Turns out it was junk mail anyway!
I wonder if we can train these birds to remove only the junk mail from our letter boxes? There could be quite a niche market for these specially trained junk interceptors.
I have written before about how clever and cunning crows and ravens can be (see the links below). The Little Ravens around our home are still trying to steal the rubber from the wiper blades on our cars. They do it when we are not looking. It is really annoying because the rubber strips are really hard to slide back into position. On several occasions they have actually taken the rubber away – presumably for nesting material. Replacing the blades is not a cheap exercise.
Related articles:
- Clever crows – some examples of the cleverness of crows.
- Something to crow about – an article about Tokyo crows with a liking for the internet.
- Ravens and windows – our resident ravens have an annoying habit.
- Thieving birds – more about those pesky ravens and their thieving ways.
- Corvids – an extract from my glossary of words about birds.
There is a difference between the Raven and Crow. Raven have a white base to their feathers which can’t be seen unless the Raven has it’s back to the wind. Henry Lawson wrote a short story about these birds which defines their personality and intelligence. When walking to the bus stop, sometimes there would be an “ark – ark – ark etc”, I quickly learnt that the rapidity of the ‘ark’ equalled the rapidity of my legs if I were to catch the bus.
A slice of TipTop 9grain with mixed seeds when they hang around will restore their confidence in you as a decent creature worth protecting. When they are obviously very hungry, as in your case, I would thow upon my roof a little bit of raw meat and some corn. They actually purr like a cat.
Thanks for pointing out the subtle differences between crows and ravens, steev.
I must check out that Henry Lawson story; it’s been ages since I last read any of his works. I have a two volume collection of all his yarns. Can you tell the name of the story in question?
Thanks for the hints re pestiferous ravens.
[…] A very clever crow […]
are crow an evil bird to have flying round your house. thanks
No bird is evil in the way humans think. In some myths and legends they are said to bring bad news, so some people may think of them as evil. On the other hand, other legends and stories say they are the bearers of good messages.
Crows and Ravens eat many insects, beetles and other bugs, including pests like snails and slugs, so I think it is good to have them in your garden, helping to keep control of such things.