
A girl who gets gifts from birds - th0br0
https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-31604026?fb_ref=Default
======
bane
When I was quite young I lived in a low-end apartment complex, not quite "the
projects" but home to lots of new immigrants working multiple jobs, lots of
latchkey kids, that sort of thing.

From time to time birds would fly into the building and those that survived
usually needed some place to recuperate a bit. I became well known in the
neighborhood as "the bird boy" for my seemingly miraculous ability to nurse
stunned birds back to health...several of the other kids in the neighborhood
tried it as well, but they ended up killing all their birds.

For a while I had a pet robin, too young to fly. He had fallen from his nest
and was abandoned after that. I took him in and fed and raised him till
eventually turning him over to a local animal sanctuary. While I had him, for
all that time, I had a friend on my shoulder or head pretty much wherever I
went. He knew who my family was and who my friends were, and would stay away
from people he didn't know. He knew where I kept his food and the process I
had to go through the make it ready for him to eat.

I don't recall ever being pooped on by him, not even once. He'd hold it till I
put him in his house, or up on a branch while out playing with my friends. He
never bit me, or did anything aggressive towards me. But he'd misbehave with
other people he didn't know.

One day, in a well meaning attempt to set him free, my mother dropped me off
from school and then dropped my bird off in the woods. I came home and
couldn't find him, my mother lied and said that he had flown away (which I
knew was patently false). Finally, out of guilt, my mother fessed up and I ran
out to the woods where she had dropped him off.

He had waited patiently all day for me and vigorously hopped towards me when
he saw me coming, chirping his head off in angry protest. He was shivering and
starving and getting him back home, warm and fed was the guiltiest I ever
felt.

Not a crow, but definitely a cool experience with wild birds.

------
codeduck
I had a pet crow when I was about 6 years old - he was a fledgeling who'd left
his nest on the hottest day of the year and was dehydrated. My brother and I
were squirting eachother with water and he cawed at us until we squirted him.
He decided this was the best thing ever, and basically adopted us from then
onwards.

He was the terror of the local cats and dogs, but left our two siamese alone
because he knew they were part of the family. He'd regularly steal visitor's
keys, and hide them in the bush alongside our house purely so he could watch
my dad or mum have to hunt for them. He'd play in the sprinkler, and knew the
sound of my dad's motorcycle - when he heard my dad coming home in the
evenings he would fly down the street and perch on my dad's shoulder for the
ride home.

Crows are awesome.

~~~
DAddYE
Similar story, ~10 years ago a friend's dad (a hunter) found this crow alone
and starving (he was probably 1 month old). He gave it to me. I feed him for
1/2 months and instead to leave him in a cage I decided to let him living
outside... free.

He was super smart, he was able to recognize me he was playful but the thing
that most surprised me was that he was really lovable he really liked to be
petted and every time I was on my way home from school he would fly down on my
shoulder and start to rub my cheeks happy to see me like a dog would.

Like a dog every time I called him within a minute or so he would fly down on
my shoulder or arm everywhere from my small town. It was a powerful sensation!

One day that didn't happen. Indeed I was deeply sad. I thought he died ceasing
cats or rats.

Around a month later I was driving home while from the windows of my car I
started to see several crows flying very close to my car.

I stopped the car when suddenly something like 15/20 crows landed in front of
me.

I'm not good in recognize crows especially at night but I suspect my crow
found his crew and wanted to let me know he was fine. Maybe a proper goodbye?

I went home with a huge smile, I was a lover of birds, I had several of them,
within years I totally stopped to buy them because I think a bird should be
free to fly.

Crows are awesome.

~~~
cmstoken
Agreed, crows are super awesome.

------
tomswartz07
There's an old 4Chan thread where a user starts 'World War Crow' by favoring a
certain group of crows over another.

Allegedly, after some time, the two groups of crows have an all out battle
over which group gets french fries.

[http://usvsth3m.com/post/69700674556/has-an-
anonymous-4chan-...](http://usvsth3m.com/post/69700674556/has-an-
anonymous-4chan-user-really-started-world-war)

~~~
silveira
True or not, this story is amazing.

~~~
klipt
Reminds me of
[http://www.harkavagrant.com/index.php?id=59](http://www.harkavagrant.com/index.php?id=59)

------
minikites
Crows are real smart. On an episode of Roderick on the Line, John Roderick
recalled a story he read where a researcher was trying to round up crows for
tests. He went into a parking lot and tossed a net, capturing some. The next
day, he went to a different parking lot across town and the crows immediately
flew away when he pulled in, because they recognized him. He went back to the
same second parking lot in a different vehicle and was able to capture some,
but then that vehicle didn't work. He started wearing masks and trying all
sorts of tricks, but as far as he could tell, the crows were communicating
through town.

~~~
ham
Regularly, I'd walk in a park near my workplace to work out problems and I
began too often to play games and tricks with the magpies (another type of
Corvid like the crow). I'd do things like throwing twigs on either side of
them to see how they would react (no magpies ever injured!). After a while I'm
certain the magpies had a particular warning call any one would call out when
I arrived in the park that would set them all of making that cawking sound
until I left. After a while I needed to avoid the park for a bit and I think I
was forgiven when I slowly started integrating myself in by leaving bits of
food like nuts.

I was amazed too at how observant they were, keeping a different distance if
they noticed I had am umbrella or something in my hand or if I was walking
funny.

The magpie is the only bird to pass the mirror test:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurasian_magpie#Intelligence](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurasian_magpie#Intelligence)

------
mxfh
There already exists an automated exploit for this behavior:

Joshua Klein's Crow Machine: [https://www.josh.is/crow-
machine/](https://www.josh.is/crow-machine/)

see also:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=470840](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=470840)

~~~
im3w1l
I think there is a big difference between gift and payment.

Your article is on skinnerian conditioning to train crows to pay for peanuts.

In this article the crows got peanuts whether they gave gifts or not. They
just decided to give gifts. No training occured.

~~~
autechr3
Perhaps in the mind of the crows, they are giving gifts as a reward. In
effect, training the human (in the article).

~~~
MollyR
That is mind-blowing, and makes me want to reevaluate the concept of gift
giving.

~~~
blacksmith_tb
There's a famous quote attributed to the Inuit that Marcel Mauss mentions in
The Gift: "Gifts make slaves like whips make dogs." Both halves of that
statement are provocative.

~~~
Khao
So can we consider our paychecks to be gifts then?

------
discardorama
A lot of people refuse to believe that animals (or birds) can show any kind of
advanced thinking. "Oh, the crow was probably carrying something in its beak;
it saw the peanut, and dropped the thing in its beak" is their explanation.
I'm sorry, but animals are far more perceptive than they're given credit for.

Also, how do you explain this?
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5NuBk5_Izc](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5NuBk5_Izc)

~~~
Varcht
I blame this on the "DreamWorks Effect", animators have done such a good job
giving animals human traits and emotions that millinials+ really can't help
but be animists.

~~~
discardorama
Conversely, I think Christians (for one) _do not_ like the idea of animals
having "human traits", because it goes against their core mythology, which
says that God created man in His image. If animals also started showing human
traits, then Man isn't so special anymore, is he?

Edited: I'm being downvoted, but this was the exact reasoning given to me by a
rather devout Christian; and it seemed to make sense. I'm agnostic, btw.

~~~
gaius
Counter-argument: The popularity of the Narnia books.

~~~
adamnemecek
That's not a counter argument

~~~
gaius
Of course it is. It is evidence that many if not most Christians are perfectly
happy with the notion of animals with souls, free will etc.

------
rickdale
On one of David Attenborough's recent shows, he said that crows can store up
30,000 pieces of food in various locations in the ground. They not only know
where each piece of food is, but they know which ones are perishable and to
get the food before it spoils. Pretty remarkable if you ask me.

~~~
maxerickson
More here:

[http://www.pbs.org/lifeofbirds/brain/](http://www.pbs.org/lifeofbirds/brain/)

The particular bird matching that number, Clark's Nutcracker, looks well
studied. This paper discusses them caching 30,000 seeds, but not in 30,000
separate locations, it concludes that they locate at least 1,000 locations by
memory:

[http://www.auburn.edu/academic/classes/biol/7560/folkerts/hu...](http://www.auburn.edu/academic/classes/biol/7560/folkerts/hutchinsnutcracker.pdf)

(that author seems to have done much field work studying the bird)

Another paper estimates that they might cache 90,000 seeds.

~~~
Luc
The paper you linked to mentions them caching seeds in all manner of different
locations. I wonder if they have some form of algorithm unknown to us to
determine a good location, rather than choosing randomly. That would aid a lot
in 'remembering' locations of the caches.

~~~
rickdale
On that same program the showed an experiment with 2 crows in side by side
cages. When the crows could see each other, they put the food in the soil
without making any noise. When they blocked the view of the other bird they
put the food into the rocks, which makes quite a bit of noise. So theres more
going into where they hide their food then first glance.

------
ChrisNorstrom
I pissed off crows and they punished me for 2 weeks.

My uncivilized hooligan former neighbors had a young tree in their yard which
they purposely allowed to grow for years right in the foundation of our brick
wall. It started casting a shadow in our garden as well. There were no nests
in the 20 foot young tree and the property was abandoned and now owned by the
bank. So I ran over and cut it down. It was big enough to start cracking the
foundation.

Big mistake, I should have worn a disguise. The crows who live in the tree
above the one I cut took saw this as vandalism (well it technically was). For
2 weeks they would poop on my car non-stop. Only my car. They knew the PT
Cruiser was mine, they shat all over that car. They specifically aimed for the
door handle on the driver's side. I have never seen such vengeful birds and
such nasty bird crap. It was discussing. They'd carpet bomb it all day, every
day, for 2 weeks. I would have about 14 bird crap splatters on the car on any
given day. They finally stopped after about 2 weeks.

I should have had a neighbor do it or worn a disguise.

~~~
ajtaylor
Looks like the crows' intelligence can go both ways! I suspect that your
disguise would not have fooled them though. I've watched some amazing feats of
Crow problem solving (thanks Sir David Attenborough!) so they probably would
have just watched which house you went into and carpet bombed ALL the cars in
the driveway.

------
Udo
Whenever someone asserts that mammalian-equivalent intelligence is incredibly
unlikely to arise twice, I like to point towards very intelligent and social
birds, like crows - who are capable of performing advanced mental feats
_without a neocortex_.

~~~
metaphorm
nature rarely does anything just once. if it can happen once it can almost
certainly happen more than once, and almost certainly does happen more than
once.

~~~
Udo
In case it wasn't clear from my comment: that was my point. I agree with you.

------
nkurz
Here's a more scientific look at the behavior:

John Marzluff & Tony Angell: Gifts of the Crow (2012)

Video:
[https://archive.org/details/scm-67314-johnmarzlufftonyangell...](https://archive.org/details/scm-67314-johnmarzlufftonyangellgiftsoft)

Book: [http://books.simonandschuster.com/Gifts-of-the-Crow/John-
Mar...](http://books.simonandschuster.com/Gifts-of-the-Crow/John-
Marzluff/9781439198742)

------
yoshizar
Konrad Lorez, one of the founders of the field of animal behavior and a Nobel
laurete, did a lot of his research on jackdaws, which are a close relative of
the crow. His book King Solomon's Ring is a really enjoyable read into his
insights about their intelligence and social life.

~~~
codyb
For anyone interested in psychology in general, his text "On Aggression" is an
amazingly well developed read on the habits of aggression starting with fish,
then birds, then eventually mammals (concluding of course with humans).

The final explanation of why a loving father of four can firebomb a city
filled with innocent people blew my mind as a younger man and shaped my
worldview.

I think I'll add King Solomon's Ring to my amazon cart now.

Cheers for reminding me of him.

------
shutupalready
> _Lisa logged on to her computer and pulled up their bird-cam. There was the
> crow she suspected. "You can see it bringing it into the yard. Walks it to
> the birdbath and actually spends time rinsing this lens cap."_

Why wouldn't they put this video in the BBC article?

~~~
kbenson
They may not have kept it. The camera system may keep a certain amount of
prior footage that is automatically flushed at a certain age, or that the
users clean out when it gets large. This is recounting a story from a few
weeks ago.

------
TeMPOraL
You know what? After spending hours reading comments here, then watching
videos and a talk about crows, it's decided. Screw drones. I don't want a
quadcopter. I want to befriend a few crows and see if I can convince some to
do cool stuff.

~~~
sounds
As someone who has worked a LOT with drones of all form factors (quad copters,
propeller drones, battery and dead dinosaur-fueled), when drones can do this,
drones will be cool:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eakKfY5aHmY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eakKfY5aHmY)

Context:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passenger_pigeon#Ecology_and_be...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passenger_pigeon#Ecology_and_behavior)

~~~
TeMPOraL
I remember that video. It was featured in a TED talk I very like [0].
Murmuration is one of the most amazing things I ever saw on YouTube. Thanks
for reminding me of it.

[0] -
[http://www.ted.com/talks/don_tapscott_four_principles_for_th...](http://www.ted.com/talks/don_tapscott_four_principles_for_the_open_world_1?language=en)

------
sdfjkl
Crows are incredibly smart:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JY8-gP3Sw_8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JY8-gP3Sw_8)

------
sprkyco
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5_DuZ8WuMM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5_DuZ8WuMM)
Saw this video a while back and was really quite amazed the process adopted to
crack walnuts. After watching that video I definitely had a higher level of
"respect" for animals and their intellect.

------
pakled_engineer
David Suzuki did an interesting show about crows but of course due to annoying
geoIP copyright can't find an American version to link.

[http://www.cbc.ca/natureofthings/m/episodes/a-murder-of-
crow...](http://www.cbc.ca/natureofthings/m/episodes/a-murder-of-crows)

There's signs up at some Indian public markets forbidding vendors taking
payment from monkeys as they watched humans exchange cash for fruit and became
pickpockets. No gifts though except a huge tip when handing over piles of
notes for one bunch of bananas.

------
beefman
Url should be simplified to
[http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-31604026](http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-31604026)

------
thekevan
I was disappointed that this article didn't include a definite scientific
opinion on whether the crows saw this as an exchange for food, or if for some
reason they bring objects to a feeding area.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
crows leave gifts for one another. This may be some variant of that, triggered
by the food?

------
gandy
Give and receive. This is some support for the idea that the law of
reciprocity is ingrained fundamentally in us, even to lower form species like
birds.

------
gandy
Give and receive. This is support that the law of reciprocity might be
ingrained in us--evident even in lower form species like birds.

------
marcusgarvey
At what point do we start calling them "people"?

------
profinger
Anyone else experiencing difficulties with the bbc site?

------
madaxe_again
This is cool, but isn't _that_ surprising, if you think about the behaviours
of other species, and that corvids as a whole are highly intelligent and use
tools in a fashion akin to primates.

I mean, primates give gifts to each other and humans, and my cat loves nothing
more than to leave the most succulent bits of viscera of whatever her prey was
for me on Persian rugs, for me to enjoy, by which I mean tread on while
heading to the shower in the morning.

~~~
canjobear
I think it is very surprising even given findings about corvid intelligence. I
know of studies showing crows can count, but that kind of intelligence does
not at all imply that a creature will spontaneously give gifts in exchange for
food. This requires either some kind of ethics including reciprocity, or it
requires that the crows reason that giving gifts will make someone more likely
to give more food. The latter reasoning requires that the crows are able to
model the behavior of an intelligent agent under hypothetical circumstances.

Bird brains are very different from mammal brains; they don't have a
neocortex. So it's very interesting that they have developed similar gift-
giving behavior to mammals and primates.

~~~
Lewton
Crow flies with thing in its beak. Sees food, drops thing, grabs food. Comes
back later, sees more food! Assumes food came from dropping thing (See
"Superstition in the pigeon" [0]). Meme spreads among the crows.

No ethics or deep reasoning required. Random rewards lead to irrational
behavior.

[0]
[http://psychclassics.asu.edu/Skinner/Pigeon/](http://psychclassics.asu.edu/Skinner/Pigeon/)

~~~
dragontamer
The final example though, where a Crow returns the camera-lens cap to the
family requires some pretty advanced thinking. We know that Crows recognize
human faces and expressions, and communicate these facts amongst each other.

Crows / Ravens are the only creature aside from Humans who perform meta-tool
use. They can use tools to grab tools to accomplish a goal. In many ways,
they're smarter than (non-human) primates, and are probably the 2nd smartest
animals on earth.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Caledonian_crow#Meta-
tool_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Caledonian_crow#Meta-tool_use)

Birds in general are pretty smart (see Pidgeons, Parrots, etc. etc.) However
crows / ravens are on a _completely_ different intelligence level. Crows break
nuts by dropping them on the asphalt... timing their drops during red lights
so that traffic doesn't hit them.

Besides, gift-giving is seen in far dumber animals than crows. Dogs, Cats,
Penguins... they don't have the intelligence of Crows but they understand
gifts and social situations.

~~~
pavel_lishin
> _The final example though, where a Crow returns the camera-lens cap to the
> family requires some pretty advanced thinking._

I think the article (and probably the podcast? haven't listened yet) make too
big a deal of this. We don't know that the crows realized that the lens cap
belonged to those people. Perhaps they just saw it as another neat thing to
gift. Perhaps they smelled the family on it, and just returned it to a place
that smelled similarly.

~~~
gaius
_Perhaps they smelled the family on it, and just returned it to a place that
smelled similarly._

Can _you_ do that?

~~~
kaybe
Most people never try. Feynman found he could, to some extend.

[https://books.google.de/books?id=Z7g-BAAAQBAJ&pg=PA105&lpg=P...](https://books.google.de/books?id=Z7g-BAAAQBAJ&pg=PA105&lpg=PA105&dq=feynman+smell+books&source=bl&ots=WQZhRfi_oQ&sig=Jy-2xoqbc4IMwiE17_zOipToGBY&hl=de&sa=X&ei=OV_vVLLSEszaOJncgcgB&ved=0CCIQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=feynman%20smell%20books&f=false)

~~~
lotsofmangos
That story makes me suspect that Feynman was also a genius at flirting.

------
hackaflocka
Hoaxes involving children and/or their magical gifts:
[http://tempr.org/54ef57337b951.html](http://tempr.org/54ef57337b951.html)

~~~
ForHackernews
None of those seem relevant or even related to this story, except inasmuch as
they involve a child.

------
sebthomas
Thought it read 'get lifts from birds' \- disappointed.

------
right2roam
I had a gift this morning, from a pigeon, onto my shoulder whilst waiting for
the train to pull into the platform for work.

Supposed to be lucky - not sure for me or the pigeon though!

