Crow

The crow is a large black bird that is one of the most intelligent animals known. Crows can recognise individual human faces and remember them for years. In a well-known experiment, researchers wearing a particular mask caught and released some crows; years later, crows in the area still scolded anyone wearing that mask, including crows that had never been caught themselves.^[1] The crows had told the others. It is the only bird known to keep a list.

Intelligence

Some crows make and use tools. New Caledonian crows shape twigs and leaves into hooks to pull insects out of holes, and keep good tools for later. Crows have also solved puzzles that require several steps in the right order, a skill some people struggle with when assembling furniture.^[2]

Crows have been seen dropping hard nuts onto roads so that passing cars crack them open, then waiting for the traffic to stop before collecting the pieces. This makes the crow the only bird to have understood the queue.

Collective nouns

A group of crows is called a murder. Ornithologists believe this is a very old name that refers to the birds' black feathers and loud calls, and that the crows themselves had no say in it. A campaign to rename it a committee was dropped when it was pointed out that crows would be good at that, too.

See also

• Black – its colour
• Queue – which it understands
• Lamppost – a good place to watch from

References

1. Grudge, G. (2010). We Remember. Feather Press.
2. Hook, T. (2004). “Twig Engineering”. Bird Tools Monthly 2: 2.
3. Corvid, C. (1997). “On the Word ‘Murder’: A Complaint”. Undelivered.