Another Report on Intelligence in Crows

[Recusant]

There are fairly well known videos of crows solving puzzles, including forming tools to complete puzzle solving tasks.

There is a new study which shows that crows are capable of analogical reasoning, and that they exhibit this reasoning capability without being shown how to do it.

"Crows Are Smarter than You Think" | Neuroscience News

A study involving the University of Iowa finds crows join humans, apes, and monkeys in exhibiting advanced relational thinking

Crows have long been heralded for their high intelligence?they can remember faces, use tools, and communicate in sophisticated ways.

But a newly published study finds crows also have the brain power to solve higher-order, relational-matching tasks, and they can do so spontaneously. That means crows join humans, apes, and monkeys in exhibiting advanced relational thinking, according to the research.

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[Pasta Chick]

Birds in general are waaaay smarter than they get credit for.  Alex the gray parrot is worth looking up as well.

Also, today I spent the evening monitoring parakeets because one bird in the new shipment apparently learned how to open cage doors.  And promptly taught all the other parakeets.  Considering they never sell out completely, this could go on for a long time...

[Asmodean]

The Asmo suspected Crow was intelligent, but THIS! 

Contingency plans will have to be made. 

[Recusant]

Not particularly surprising for people who've spent any time around these birds, but still interesting, I think.

"Crows Understand Death And Threat Of It From Predators" | Nature World News

For his study, doctoral researcher Kaeli N. Swift created a unique way of testing how crows respond to threats and death. To begin the experiment, Swift delivered food to a particular spot each day so the crows learned to congregate there. Next, volunteers confronted the birds using a taxidermy crow or pigeon that was arranged in a pose suggesting it was dead. They also used taxidermied red-tailed hawks – known for preying on crows – posing them branches. Volunteers were masked to ensure variations in their expressions would not affect the crows' alarm responses.

"I was always the friendly feeder, which was nice. I never made any crow enemies. I would put my food out, then this second person would show up," Swift told BBC. "They [the masked volunteers] would be holding a dead crow, not violently, not reenacting a death scene, just holding it like they were picking it up to throw it in rubbish, palms outstretched like you might hold a plate of hors d'oeuvre."

When the masked person first approached carrying a "dead" crow, the birds abandoned the food Swift laid out and mobbed or scolded what they thought was a potential predator. But the crows barely reacted when volunteers carried a "dead" pigeon. Researchers also found that if a "live" hawk was placed near the crows, the birds were even more likely to avoid the food, suggesting they associated the hawk with danger.

Following one of these encounters, the crows took more time surveying the area before approaching food. They even appeared to remember the masks because they continued to scold the person whenever they appeared for up a period of approximately six weeks.

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The full paper is available for free: "Wild American crows gather around their dead to learn about danger" | Animal Behaviour

[OldGit]

Crows are hard to shoot - the Welsh say they can smell the gunpowder - but when my father shot pigeons from a hide, he'd shoot a crow if he could and use it for a decoy.  He reckoned that pigeons trusted a crow and would land were one was feeding.