Thursday, September 03, 2009

Favorites of mine ...

... crows, that is. A review of Crow Planet: Essential Wisdom from the Urban Wilderness. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Crows have a highly developed language that includes 23 recognizable vocalizations and countless others. Corvids recognize faces; develop tools; follow crosswalk signals; and respond to humans who have both hurt and helped them. Like some urban humans, urban crows often fly out to rural areas for short breaks from urban life. University of Washington researchers are giving corvids a battery of intelligence tests usually reserved for primates.
See also this video about Partnering With Crows. (Thanks to Jonathan for the tip.)
Post bumped.

5 comments:

  1. Jonathan7:13 PM

    Have you seen this fun video on crow intelligence from TED.com yet?

    http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/joshua_klein_on_the_intelligence_of_crows.html

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  2. I wonder why there is so much around about crows at the moment. It's very interesting - but it's weird how its all come at once. Decades of crow-famine then this. (caw) :-)

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  3. Their time has come, Clare. And more power to them.

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  4. Ugh, it makes me feel I've jumped on some sort of bandwagon with my new novel Corvus, though I began it four years ago. (Ditto the political overtones!)

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