Today I felt like I need to voice my admiration to winter birds: Crows (CORVUS in latin, CUERVOS in spanish) are one of the animals that have gained my respect in my time living in the northern US. I admire their tenacity in coexisting with the more vicious species: humans. They are smart enough to limit their encounters with humans during summer time...Then to recover the urban territory in winter time. They seem to me "winter" birds because they are one of the few beings that make life happen in the cold -in a noisy way-. They remind me that not all is dormant in winter and that while humans rule earth in sunny conditions they are stronger in winter conditions. Here are some observations by scientist on the intelligence of the persistent and articulate black birds:
"While tool use among birds is not unheard of, Hunt's New Caledonian crows, close kin to American crows, were observed employing two distinctly different kinds of tools to forage for invertebrates such as insects, centipedes, and larvae. Such specialization in tool manufacture has not heretofore been observed in nonhuman animals, according to Hunt. The observations occurred between November 1992 and March 1995 in New Caledonia, a group of islands 900 miles northeast of Australia. Hunt observed both manufacture and use of a hooked tool made by plucking and stripping a barbed twig. He also observed the use, but not manufacture, of what he described as a "stepped cut tool" with serrated edges. He did, however, observe and photograph leaves from which crows had started to cut such stepped tools."
Supodselly crows and ravens articulate sounds (the noisy interventions in groups) not to convey concepts but to express emotions...So a gathering of noisy crows is a poetry jam! Awesome birds...
Two things that I found funny when researching good liks for this entry: some individuals are obsessed in finding "white" crows...(white whatever, to give sense to their white ideals)...weird individuals. Some other individuals (most of humans i'm afraid) think of brave and selfsuficient animals as pest. Like animals have no right to survive finding food in our mess...researching about animals we find more thruth about humans, I think.
