Crow
While hawks tend to be the primary daytime predators of crows, their most deadly predators, in many areas, are the owls that hunt by night, preying upon crows sleeping helplessly in their roosts. Presumably their dark color is particularly helpful in blending into nighttime shadows. Crows also will often mob owls much more fiercely when they find them in daylight than they dohawks and other raptors. Frequently crows appear to "play" with hawks, taking turns "
counting coup" while escorting the raptor out of their territory. Their attacks on owls, on the other hand, possess a definite serious quality.
Intra-specific uses of color in crow societies
Even in species characterized by being all black, one will still occasionally find variations, most of which appear to result from varying degrees of
albinism, such as:
* an otherwise all-black crow stunningly contrasted by a full set of brilliant, pure-white primary feathers.
* complete covering in varying shades of grey (generally tending toward the darker side)
* blue or red, rather than swarthy eyes (blue being more common than red).
* Some combination of the above
The treatment of these rare individuals may vary from group to group, even within the same species. For example, one such individual may receive special treatment, attention, or care from the others in its group, while another group of the same species might exile such individuals, forcing them to fend for themselves. The reason for such behaviors, and why these behaviors vary as they do, has yet to be studied.
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Crow searching food from punctured wastebag |
As a group, the crows show remarkable examples of intelligence. They top the
avian IQ scale[
1]. Crows and ravens often score very highly on intelligence tests. Crows in the northwestern U.S. (a blend of
Corvus brachyrhynchos and
Corvus caurinus) show modest linguistic capabilities and the ability to relay information over great distances, live in complex, hierarchic societies involving hundreds of individuals with various "occupations", and have an intense rivalry with the area's less socially advanced ravens. One species, the
New Caledonian Crow, has recently been intensively studied because of its ability to manufacture and use its own
tools in the day-to-day search for food. Wild
hooded crows in Israel have learned to use bread crumbs for bait-fishing. Crows will engage in a kind of midair
jousting, or air-"
chicken" to establish pecking order.
Crows make a wide variety of calls or vocalizations. Whether the crows' system of communication constitutes a
language is a topic of debate and study. Crows have also been observed to respond to calls of other species; this behavior is presumably learned because it varies regionally. Crows' vocalizations are complex and poorly understood. Some of the many vocalizations that crows make are a "caw", usually echoed back and forth between birds, a series of "caws" in discrete units, counting out numbers, a long caw followed by a series of short caws (usually made when a bird takes off from a perch), an echo-like "eh-aw" sound, and more. These vocalizations vary regionally. The pattern and number of the numerical vocalizations have been observed to change in response to events in the surroundings (i.e. arrival or departure of crows). Crows can hear sound frequencies lower than those that humans can hear, which complicates the study of their vocalizations.
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Crow on a branch, Maruyama Kyo (1733-1795) |
Australian species
*
Australian Raven C. coronoides*
Forest Raven C. tasmanicus**
Relict Raven C. t. boreus*
Little Crow C. bennetti*
Little Raven C. mellori*
Torresian Crow C. orruNew Zealand species
*
Chatham Islands Raven,
Corvus moriorum †*
New Zealand Raven,
Corvus antipodum †**
North Island Raven,
Corvus antipodum antipodum †**
South Island Raven,
Corvus antipodum pycrafti †North American species
*
American Crow C. brachyrhynchos*
Chihuahuan Raven C. cryptoleucus*
Common Raven C. corax*
Fish Crow C. ossifragus*
Northwestern Crow C. caurinus*
Tamaulipas Crow C. imparatus*
Sinaloan Crow C. sinaloaeAfrican species
*
Cape Crow C. capensis*
Fan-tailed Raven C. rhipidurus*
Pied Crow C. albus*
Somali Crow or
Dwarf Raven C. edithae*
Thick-billed Raven C. crassirostris*
White-necked Raven C. albicollisNorth African and Asia Minor species
*
Brown-necked Raven C. ruficollis*
Hooded Crow C. cornix*
Common Raven C. corax*
Fan-tailed Raven C. rhipidurusEuropean species
*
Carrion Crow C. corone*
Common Raven C. corax*
Hooded Crow C. cornix*
Jackdaw C. monedula *
Rook C. frugilegusAsian species
*
Carrion Crow C. corone*
Collared Crow C. torquatus*
Daurian Jackdaw C. dauricus*
House Crow C. splendens*
Jungle Crow C. macrorhynchos*
Rook C. frugilegus*
Common Raven C. coraxThe islands between Southeast Asia and Australia have several species, as do the West Indies off the south east coast of the North American continent. A few Pacific islands (including Hawaii) have representative species also.
Various island species
*
Hawaiian Crow or
'Alala C. hawaiiensis (
formerly C. tropicus)
*
New Caledonian crow C. moneduloides*
Cuban Crow C. nasicus*
Jamaican Crow C. jamaicensis*
Palm Crow C. palmarum*
White-necked Crow C. leucognaphalus*
White-billed Crow C. woodfordi*
Grey Crow C. tristisFor more information regarding crows, see the individual species.
For more information regarding relatives of the crows, such as
magpies and
jays, see
Corvidae.
Crows, and especially
ravens, often feature in
legends or
mythology as
portents or harbingers of doom or
death, because of their dark plumage, unnerving calls, and tendency to eat
carrion. They are commonly thought to circle above scenes of death such as
battles. Their depiction of evil has also led to some exaggeration of their appetite. In
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest and
Exorcist: The Beginning, crows are shown tearing out people's eyes while they are still alive. This, of course, does not happen as crows can distinguish between
carrion and living people.
In
Native American folklore, Crow is often seen as a similar trickster to
Coyote. However, Crow's tricks tend to be more out of malice and they rarely (if ever) are portrayed as a hero. One possible explanation for this is that crows are often considered a
pest to
crops, which the tribes who came up with the stories featuring Crow needed to survive.
In the
Epic of Gilgamesh, the
Chaldean myth, the character
Utnapishtim releases a
dove and a raven to find land, similar to what
Noah does in the book of
Genesis. However, in the Epic of Gilgamesh, the dove merely circles and returns. Only then does Utnapishtim send forth the raven, who does not return. Utnapishtim extrapolates from this that the raven has found land, which is why it hasn't returned. This would seem to indicate some acknowledgement of crow intelligence, which may have been apparent even in ancient times, and to some might imply that the higher intelligence of crows, when compared to other birds, is striking enough that it was known even then.
In
occult circles, distinctions are sometimes made between crows and ravens. In mythology and folklore as a whole, crows tend to be
symbolic more of the spiritual aspect of death, or the transition of the spirit into the
afterlife, whereas ravens tend more often to be associated with the negative (physical) aspect of death. However, few if any individual mythologies or folklores make such a distinction, and there are ample exceptions. Another reason for this distinction is that while crows are typically highly social animals, ravens don't seem to congregate in large numbers anywhere but a) near carrion where they meet seemingly by chance, or b) at
cemeteries, where large numbers sometimes live together, even though carrion there is no more available (and probably less attainable) than any road or field.
Amongst
Neopagans, crows are often thought to be highly
psychic and are associated with the element of
ether or
spirit, rather than the element of
air as with most other birds. This may in part be due to the long-standing occult tradition of associating the color black with "the abyss" of infinite knowledge (see
akasha), or perhaps also to the more modern occult belief that wearing the "color" black aids in
psychic ability, as it absorbs more
electromagnetic energy, since surfaces appear black by absorbing all frequencies in the
visible spectrum, reflecting no color.
In contrast with their association with death, in the 2004
computer game Half-Life 2, ravens represent hope amidst destruction, because the
Combine Empire's takeover - and
fascistic rule - of the Earth has caused so much destruction it's a wonder any of the Earth's native wildlife survived at all.
Gods and goddesses associated or identified with crows and ravens
A very incomplete list includes the eponymous
Pacific Northwest Native figures
Raven and
Crow, the ravens
Hugin and Munin, who accompany the
Norse god
Odin, the
Celtic goddesses the
Mórrígan and/or the
Badb (sometimes considered separate from Mórrígan), and
Shani, a
Hindu god who travels astride a crow.
*
List of Corvus species*
Scarecrows
*
Ischys for the Greek myth of why the crow's feathers are black.
*
To eat boiled crow*
Frequently Asked Questions About Crows*
crows.net: The Language & Culture of Crows*
In the Company of Crows and Ravens, by John M. Marzluff and Tony Angell
*
Crow photographs and comments*
Video of crow making and using tools*
More info on tool use by crows, with references*
Crow videos on the Internet Bird Collection
*[http://www.crowbusters.com/} on getting rid of crows
* Gill, B. J. 2003. Osteometry and systematics of the extinct New Zealand ravens (Aves: Corvidae: Corvus). Journal of Systematic Palaeontology 1: 43-58.
* Worthy, T.H., Holdaway R.N., 2002, The lost world of the Moa: Prehistoric Life of New Zealand, Indiana University Press, Bloomington. ISBN 0253340349.
