Corvid break from Covid

then back into the war--day 1,210

Yesterday I attended a presentation on crows by Dr. Loma Pendergraft. Dr. Pendergraft was a student of Professor John Marzluff who taught at the University of Washington. I have two crow books written by Professor Marzluff. He retired last year.

The first question thrown out came to me. What is the difference between a crow and a raven? My answer, size. Correct answer. If he would have asked me for another difference, I would have told him the crows hate ravens and that they are two different species. They are not the crow’s big brother or kissing cousin. I would say the raven is the crows equal in intelligence and flying skills. I’ve witnessed both from the raven.

Dr. Pendergraft talked about the intelligence of the crow, their mating, where they roost, and their studies on the crow brain. In the crow community there is a belief that crows memory is 100 times greater than that of a human. This belief has been scientifically proven. Who is the top of the food chain now?

Expanding on the above but can’t be proven is that crows never forget anything from birth to death. No such thing as Alzheimer’s or dementia in the crow world. I’d also say they’re math wizards. They calculate wind speed and positioning that allows them to land on a light pole in a hurricane.  They can also calculate speed and distance as they stand in the middle of the road eating roadkill. They take off with just enough time to narrowly becoming roadkill themselves. Of which the driver usually says, “Crazy ass crow.”

He mentioned that crows can live 20 to 30 years. That is not my experience having studied them for 20 years. Perhaps in a cage, but not in the wild. My crow Rex lived nine years and went through three mates who were no doubt killed by predators. Also, crows fly from their roost to their territory up to 30 miles. Round trip that is 60 miles a day seven days a week, 365 days a year and they don’t take any sick days off. They arrive at their territory at sunrise and leave with just enough time to make it back to roost before sunset so add in an additional 12 hours of mileage of which some of that is narrowly escaping predators.

Dr. Pendergraft played a series of crow calls. He acknowledged that they were all alert calls but said they couldn’t distinguish why they had different calls. I can. An alert call for a cat is different from a hawk or eagle. A keep away I have a fledgling baby on the ground is also a different call. When an alert call goes out crows scatter to the very top of trees. One goes to the south, another north, east and west. They now have a 360 degree view and they then call out who, what and where and then they strategize to attack the predator and drive it out of the area. Some believe the crows call out the exact latitude / longitude coordinates of the predator with additional information, altitude, direction and speed.

He talked about crows making tools to get food and showed some video. I’ve never seen it happen in the wild. I suspect that only captive crows in cages make tools to retrieve food.

After the presentation Dr. Pendergraft took questions. My question was, do both parents roost at the nest during the breeding cycle? He said he knows the female does, but isn’t sure on the male. I also asked him about other common calls the crows use. There is a very common call called the baa, baa call. To my surprise he had never heard it. This confused me. Later that night I was sipping a cocktail and wondering why the professor wouldn’t know the common baa baa call. I determined that the baa baa call is only for friends. It is a call of adoration. You are accepted by the crow. Dr. Pendergraft is an enemy to the crow. He captures crows and cages them for experiments. He can’t keep the mask on all the time and even if he did he would have to change his voice. Crows also have voice recognition. They may even have some other sensory recognition that we don’t know about. This is why the professor didn’t know the common baa, baa call. The prison guard / Dr. Evil isn’t accepted.

I brought a picture of my crow Rex and showed it to Dr. Pendergraft. He took the picture and showed it to the audience.

I told him that crows sun bath and that when they do they go into a trance. He acknowledged that it was true and said they aren’t sure why they do it and it is obvious my crow feels completely safe with me. I told him that perhaps crows are just like humans. Humans like to sunbath, go into a trance and fall asleep. He then asked, “Why do humans like to do that?” I once saw Rex in a sun bathing trance spread out at the back of the garden. Not safe. She could easily be killed by a hawk. I walked right up to her and got my face down by hers and said quietly, “Rex, it isn’t safe here.” She snapped out of it and jumped up.

Additional pictures of Rex and her babies. Start video and scroll through.

One of Rex’s babies.

Rex in the middle with two of her babies.

Rex going into a sun trance on the garden box.

Rex flying down to me. Flaps out for landing.

Rex and a baby. Note the garden boxes in the back. I just finished building them. This is phase two of garden extension.

This is our first garden together with the new boxes.

Hanging out with Rex on an early foggy morning in September.

This isn’t Rex. This is a female crow who came after Rex. Sadly she was killed on the nest the first year she was with me.

Pictures below are my crow friend at a park about ¾ mile away from my house. I walk down and see her almost every day. I walk and she flies along side me. Sometimes she will brush my head with her wing. After I post this I’m walking down to see her.