Suddenly, a shadow peeled off the ground and drifted into the sky. Was that an eagle?
A second later, I sighed. That was no eagle. It was a blasted crow.
You should know two things about this moment: first, as I would discover later, considering its size, solitary nature, and rural location, I was more than likely seeing a raven, not a crow. The other thing you should know is that at this time in my life I had a festering contempt for any bird of the corvid variety—corvid meaning crows, ravens, magpies … Our troubled past has its roots in walking to my work at Sky View high school and feeling personally targeted by the local murder, the term for a grouping of crows (tell me that your species is despised by the human race without actually telling me).
This murder lounged on the roof above my classroom and cackled at me in a way that seemed like obvious derision. I reciprocated anytime we went outside and we would heckle back and forth. I’d try to scare them off with some weakly tossed pebbles and sticks.
It should be no surprise then, that the Raven outside Goblin Valley brought disappointment verging upon abhorrence. Whether on roofs, bare trees in the winter, or even in the middle of nowhere deserts, crows are freaking everywhere I go!
And that is when it hit me. The only two animal species in this desolate landscape at this moment were humans … and corvids. Perhaps crows, ravens, magpies are so ubiquitous because they are intrinsically connected to one other species: humans.
Perhaps, just as crows followed humans to a wide-range of environments, they also adopted some of our best and most regrettable traits along the way.
In spite of those human-like faults, like greed, bickering and pestering, they also reflected some of our better qualities of ingenuity, community, and interspecies regard.
I begrudgingly saluted the raven, now a speck in the rear view mirror, and decided to reset my views of corvids. I reasoned that if I could not show crows respect, then how could I respect my own human race?
I decided to track down an expert. Dr. Becky Williams from the Utah State University biology department in the Uintah Basin extension, was kind enough to allow some amateur questions from me.
First, Dr. Williams assured me that crows are “aggressive territorial predators.” One could see how they might see a rooftop on the school and surrounding area as their own domain, and defend it aggressively against intruders! Hard to criticize a bird for that, when there could not be a more territorial predator than our own species.
When I spoke to Dr. Williams about the versatility of crows—their habitat reaches nearly as wide range of locations and climates as humans—she talked about a big reason being their intelligence. Corvid birds are smart, and that means that they don’t need as perfect an environment because they can come up with clever ways to survive.
Crows have bigger brains than their fellow fowl. They can remember thousands of different cache locations for seeds or other foods. They can even remember faces. Dr. Williams directed me to a study where crows recognized a unique human mask that researchers used in their interactions with a particular murder. When she told me this, I had no problem confirming what seemed to me a very targeted pestering from the same crows over several years.
This intelligence, Dr. Williams explained, tended to show itself in social animals: Crows, dolphins, humans … all spend a majority of their time in communities. The complex relationships of those communities causes them to need to remember who is a cooperator and who is a cheater. In other words, they make an in-group of those who work together, and they hold a grudge. What’s more human than that!
Once this information shifted my views on crows, I knew that I lacked much needed reconciliation. The south Smithfield murder of crows and I had nursed our historic differences, and it was time that I made things right.
When the murder showed up at their regular spot above my classroom, I tried meeting the crows outside. I wanted them to see my face as I gave them a snack. As soon as I reached into my pocket for a gift snack, they flapped off into the distance. My action of reaching for an object must have seemed familiar to them, as pulling things off the ground or out of my pocket was how I used to scare them off from before. They remembered the old me, and—as I had shamefully trained them—they retreated.
Just a couple of days ago, after weeks of non-aggressive attempted interactions, one of the more daring crows overcame reticence and dropped to the ground to investigate the unsalted peanut I dropped for them. He looked at it, looked at me, snatched it and withdrew back to the tree.
I am happy to report that now more of them are feeling comfortable picking up snacks I leave for them.
Am I looking to create a utopian bond between these crows and me? No. Perhaps dropping an occasional peanut and not yelling at each other will be the best that we can get. But I feel an immense satisfaction in seeing these remarkable animals respond to my overtures and believing that we have mended a divide between us and possibly even cultivated respect.
One of the biggest differences that I’ve noticed lately, is that when I step outside for my daily walk, no longer am I looking down to queue up the latest podcast with people cackling about political strife, or to take in media designed to ruffle the feathers of indignation of one group against another. Instead, as soon as I step outside, I look up. I’m looking for my new corvid friends—humbled, hopeful, grateful.
This is Marty Reeder, and I am Wild About Utah
Credits:
Image: Courtesy Pixabay, Alexas Photos, Contributor
Featured Audio: Courtesy Freesound.org): 210701 American Crows, caws calling, sparrows, robin, urban residential, TORONTO, 7am.wav by TRP, Thomas Ryder Payne. Sound designer, composer, musician. Based in Toronto. — https://freesound.org/s/616975/
License: Creative Commons 0
Text: Marty Reeder, https://skyview.ccsdut.org/
Additional Reading: Lyle Bingham, https://bridgerlandaudubon.org/
Additional Reading
Wild About Utah Pieces by Marty Reeder
Strand, Holly, Crow vs. Raven, Wild About Utah, September 15, 2011, https://wildaboututah.org/crow-vs-raven/
Kelly, Patrick, Greetings puny earthlings, Wild About Utah, September 28, 2020, https://wildaboututah.org/greetings-puny-earthlings/
Boling, Josh, Josh’s Raven Encounter, Wild About Utah, June 11, 2018, https://wildaboututah.org/joshs-raven-encounter/
Kolowski, Joseph, Outdoor Experiences in High-Def, Wild About Utah, June 10, 2024, https://wildaboututah.org/outdoor-experiences-in-high-def/
Boling, Josh, The Language of Ravens, Wild About Utah, February 19, 2018, https://wildaboututah.org/language-of-ravens/
How to Tell Crows and Ravens Apart by Sight and Sound, All About Birds, Oct 22, 2024, https://www.allaboutbirds.org/news/similar-species-crows-and-ravens/
