"A passerby discovers it first - and lets out a piercing call. Within seconds, everyone in earshot rushes to the scene. It's mayhem... or so it seems. Crows are intelligent, and super chatty. They watch out for one another within tight-knit groups. As adults it's pretty rare for crows to be killed. So when one dies the others notice. Are they just scared? Or is something deeper going on."
"When an unmasked Swift returns to the park the next week with more tasty peanuts, the crows are quiet and wary. They seem to have learned there's something hazardous about this place. Still, they eat the peanuts. But they take longer to approach and seem to be much more suspicious. And when Swift returns wearing the mask? They lose it. Even without the dead crow, they still see her as a threat."
An experiment in a Seattle park habituated crows with piles of peanuts, then introduced a masked visitor carrying a taxidermied crow. The first crow to spot the scene sounded the alarm and the flock erupted in scolding and wailing around the dead bird and the visitor. These noisy gatherings function as opportunities for crows to learn about local dangers within the safety of the group. Later, crows returned to the site but approached more slowly and remained wary of the visitor; the mask alone triggered strong, lasting aversion in many birds, unlike pigeons.
Read at Kqed
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]