Underneath a Crow's Black Veneer

Crows are loved and loathed. Without reservation, I would put myself in the former category, but I know many that would demand entry into the latter. One gets the sense that crows are a ‘Marmite’ issue, but they needn’t be – everyone should be devout admirers.

         Crows, for me and ornithologists, means a bird of the family Corvidae (which actually contains far more bird species than many are aware of – everything from the flamboyant and vocally diverse jay (Garrulus glandarius) to another reviled species, the magpie (Pica pica)). Here, however, I will largely restrict its meaning to what many people (dare I say it, laypersons) will be familiar with: the carrion crow (Corvus corone; look it up because it’s fantastic bird).

         Why are they so passionately detested? Even though I obviously do not hate them, I understand (?) why some people do. Firstly, they’re black. Black, of course is: the colour of doom and gloom; the colour of the garments we wear to funerals; a harbinger of death, and destruction, for example the Black Death; and a word we use in the naming of things that shake us deeply, for example Black Thursday which begun the Great Depression. You might be wandering, “what about blackbirds, they’re black but are still loved.” Yes, but they are also adorned with a vibrant yellow-orange beak. I think this smidgen of colour is just enough to allow one to open their eyes and appreciate the bird as a whole. However, the crow is, you guessed it, black, black, black, black! The number of ‘black’ qualifiers here was chosen carefully, representing body, beak, legs, and eye, respectively – it really is one monotonous ghastly theme.

         The ghastly theme is also all to present in the crow’s eating habits. They are not averse to feasting on 2-week-old road kill. (Incidentally, in this respect, they carry out an essential role of a free road-cleanup service.) Furthermore, they relish eyes which are often first body part to disappear. Indeed, they will even engage in combat with each other over an eye. This is certainly not haute cuisine.

         They also delight in snatching nestlings of other species from their cosy nest. On asking most people a fairly open question, “what do crows do?” they will inevitably answer “they eat all my small garden birds.” This is, unquestionably, nonsense. Sure, they eat some birds, and probably under some circumstance, a lot. But they are not going to eat all the much favoured and adored small birds. This just can’t happen. For one, those small birds breed far too quickly for any impact from predation by crows to be noticeable. (For the interested reader, I direct you to a scientific study that looked into precisely this: can predators have noticeable effects on the populations of their prey species? The citation is: Newson, S.E. et al. (2010). Population changes of avian predators and grey squirrels in England: is there evidence for an impact on avian prey populations? Journal of Applied Ecology. 47: 244-252.).

         On top of these and to add insult to injury is the crow’s collective noun – if ever there were a noun to deter the masses, it is murder. A murder of crows is always going to discourage love and promote loathness. The person who first described a group of crows as a murder must surely have wanted the latter. Perhaps he coined it in the aftermath of battle when thousands of dead soldiers would have likely been scavenged by crows. Whether he did or didn’t, a murder of crows is bordering on propaganda.

         Under their murderous, black veneer they are actually very intelligent, sociable, and inventive birds. These attributes, I argue, far outweigh their ghastly characteristics. Intelligence is a very obscure and intangible thing really and we humans just love to anthropomorphise. Anthropomorphism is fine in some cases (I know I do it; I’ve done it in this written piece) but sometimes in order to attain an understanding and appreciation you need to step back and look at the animal for what it is. Intelligence is the perfect case in point: most non-human animals cannot count (though, allegedly, a horse named Clever Hans could). But does this make them unintelligent? Of course it doesn’t. Most animals have no need to count.

         But they often need to obtain a meal in difficult situations, say in a hole too small to get their head into. Crows are the master of this skill.

         Scientists have simulated this scenario by placing a little treat-laden bucket in a well with a diameter and depth that meant the crow couldn’t get it’s head in to retrieve the bucket. The scientists then provided the crow with a peace of wire and low-and-behold the crow began to bend one end into a hook shape. The wily crow then proceeded to use it as a gaff to hoist up the bucket to get at the treat. From this alone we can say they have forethought because they are able to create a tool that will be used later, inventiveness (they’ve got far more of this than I have), not to mention that they can actually use a tool. I totally admirer these behaviours since I struggle to use even scissors.

         At this point I must be honest – the crows used in that experiment were in fact New Caledonian crows (Corvus moneduloides). As much as I wanted it to, there was no way this written piece could have focussed solely on the carrion crow. There just hasn’t been enough hard science done on that species. But it is also true that most people would struggle to separate New Caledonian and carrion crows visually. Most places throughout the world have their own black crow – as well as the two mentioned above, Asia has their jungle crow (Corvus macrorhynchos); Hawaiʻi has their Hawaiian crow (Corvus hawaiiensis), although it is almost extinct; and North America has their American crow (Corvus brachyrhynchos).

         They don’t just use puny, pitiful pieces of wire to get at morsels of food – they use cars in some places to do the awkward job of cracking open nuts. Now we’re talking! Some will perch atop traffic lights after having placed a nut in the line of car tires, alight on the asphalt when the light turn red, and retrieve their well-deserved treat. When perched atop lights they give the impression of a traffic conductor.

         The social lives of crows are akin to humans. Humans need other humans; crows need other crows. This fact is no more evident than in winter when large number come together to roost. These roosts are their version of our shopping centres, concerts, and clubs, really anywhere where people come together in large numbers and exchange information. Information sharing is as important for crows as it is for us. They learn about new feeding locations: who would be a good partner come the spring; who reciprocates in sharing information and thus is a good crow to affiliate with, besides others.

         These roosts can contain many thousands of birds. I, for one, find it mesmerising to watch thousands upon thousands of crows all flying in near-synchrony to and from the roost, while all calling incredibly asynchronously. The juxtaposition of visual synchrony with aural asynchrony is spectacular in strange way only appreciable to those who have witnessed it. It sounds unbelievably chaotic, but at the same time it looks unbelievably ordered – rather like a mass evacuation of people from a building after hearing a fire alarm.

         But there are some who find these gatherings, or murders, “simply annoying.” Indeed, a website I found asked the admirable question: “… why in this day of rampant animal rights fanaticism, should we continue to hunt and kill an animal that has no real monetary value? …,” and proceeded to answer it: “…. the reason is that the crow … [is] simply annoying.” I would not consider myself an animal rights fanatic, but killing an animal because it’s “simply annoying” is out of my reasoning and beyond my comprehension.

         So they’re black, scavenging, marauding, pillaging, beasts that send shivers down ones spines at the sound: caw, caw, caw. But so what! So can humans be these things. Under their superficial coat of black feather, they are actually very similar to humans. This, I argue, is what we should be saying to ourselves every time we see one. And next time you do see one, whether it be any one of the regional species, not only say those few words but also look out for the similarities between us and crows. They will surprise you.

         Caw!