Imagine yourself in a place where your only food is at the bottom of a ‘well’, the walls of which extend to about your height, and you can only use one hand to wield a long pole terminating in a hook to fish out your food.  Having realised this fact, you now manoeuvre to one-handedly get that pole over the lip of the ‘well’ and work it down to where you can hook the handle of the food bucket at the bottom, then work it back up again without losing the bucket en route, and finally extract the bucket so you can set it down somewhere and eat.

 Two individuals were presented with this challenge.  The first one succeeded fairly skilfully but, with what some might consider typical masculine thoughtlessness, walked off with the only hook!  The other, with what some might consider typical female resourcefulness, found a straight pole nearby and decided to transform it into a workable tool.  Being one-handed, remember, this meant pushing and prodding the end of the pole against various angles and corners until it bent into a hook that would do the job.  Push, prod, angle, push, go over and try it out… nope, needs more… go back and try this corner, that angle, push here, prod there, go try it out, and …. SUCCESS!  Bucket is hooked and extracted using the improvised tool, and Ms. Betty gets her dinner.

 In another experiment, an array of poles of graduated lengths was offered to participants and their challenge was to select by sight the one pole of the exact right length to do a job.  Too short, and it wouldn’t reach.  Too long, and the angle wouldn’t work out.  A significant number of participants chose correctly on their first attempt. 

 In spite of their ingenuity in the use, conception, design, and formulation of tools, however, none of these experimental subjects will be attending engineering school because the latter, at last notice, does not accept…. crows!.... as candidates.  Indeed, ‘birdbrain’ takes on a new meaning as research is proving that corvids (crow, raven, et al. family) are not only the smartest of all birds, but among the smartest of all animals in general.

 These birds are not only paragons of animal cognition, but also of family and community structures that outshine many humans’.  As the Hebrew word ‘orev’ means both ‘raven’ and ‘crow’, I’ll use the word ‘crow’.  Crows mate for life.  If a something happens to a parent, someone else steps in to help raise the young.  Juveniles (‘teens’ before sexual maturity but too old for the nest) either join small groups of their peers or stay at home to help mum and dad raise subsequent siblings until mating and starting families of their own. 

 Crows are very loyal to their family and their community, helping each other out and protecting each others’ backs.  This last is the basis of the infamous ‘crow attacks’ that occasional residents seem to have been victims of.  Said attacks stem either from the belief that the human is threatening a nest or community member, or the memory of him (or someone strongly resembling him) having done so in the past. 

 Contrary to popular lore, attacks are few and far between, and not all are with intent to harm.  Often they are just warnings with lots of drama and swooping and yelling intended to scare off the perceived enemy, although sometimes they involve actual physical contact.  Like elephants, crows have long memories and will remember someone who was kind to them, as well as threatening or harmful, for a goodly long time.  A perceived attack by a lone crow could very likely be a bird who’s been around humans and then was released/escaped, looking to land on you for a bit of cuddling or nosh. 

 The City has put out a little guide to residents on environmental matters.  One page is entitled “Rules for Behaviour with Crows”.  (Greet them politely, introduce yourself, offer to shake a wing?  Not quite…)  The page starts out with the statement that “the Indian Crows are aggressive crows who are not afraid of human proximity.  They search for food, sleep, and protect each other in groups.”  Now that everyone is properly scared, envisioning mass attacks a la Hitchcock’s “The Birds”, the guide goes on to offer advice [paraphrased in italics]: 

1) Don’t approach grounded or wounded individuals, as they won’t forget you for it.  True - they may not realise that your approach to, or removal of, a wounded bird was out of compassion and not meant as a threat or kidnapping.

2) Don’t throw things at crows, as they are likely to ‘return fire’.  Which anyone throwing things at birds or animals soundly deserves - go, crows!

3) Don’t leave food, rubbish, pet food, etc. where they’ll come for it so as not to encourage their presence.  This creates the demands and frictions that happen when a large community forms in a small habitat and compete for its resources.

4) And one last paragraph saying to notify 106 of “any risk caused by friction with crows (fledglings or wounded crows on the ground, or any gathering of crows that endangers humans).”  What they don’t say is that crows are considered pests and the authorities, rather than rehabbing the former or relocating the latter, will kill them. 

 On the one hand, crows are ‘protected’ against humans raising/rehabbing them, but on the other hand, if humans turn them in to the qualified authorities, they’re ‘culled’ (nice word for ‘killed to reduce their populations’).  Mankind creates a habitat for them - and then condemns them for flourishing in it.  If food waste was properly disposed of, they would be less disposed to make their residence here.  Sadly, once they exist, reduction of food sources just makes them more aggressive in beating out the competition for the meagre resources left, which is part of what gives them their bad name; the time to clean up our act would have been before the population burgeoned.  Something we should be doing in any case, and not needing crows to teach us!

Photos by Mikhal Ben-Shaprut (c)