We know a lot about crows, but we’ll never truly know what these smart creatures think about us. Do they continue to visit us because they view us as friends, or have they simply trained us to give them peanuts every day? For Audubon magazine, Elizabeth Preston explores the delightful world of corvids, offering insight into crow behavior and corvid-human relations.
In experiments, urban crows held long grudges against people who mistreated them, cawing harshly and forming mobs upon seeing the face of their persecutor—even years later. My sister’s crow companions knew her when she had a different haircut or wore a hat or sunglasses. Crows recognized Bergstrom in a new jacket with the hood up. Walking around different parts of town, he sometimes encounters a crow who seems to know him; a bird will land nearby and look at him expectantly. When he returned to campus after a year away, crows greeted him immediately, Bergstrom says: “Sort of, ‘Where the hell have you been?’”
More stories from Audubon magazine
Off the East Coast, a Massive Network of Wind Turbines Is Coming—Along With New Risks for Migrating Birds
“Species journeying over the Atlantic Ocean will soon have to navigate wind farms. But without clean energy, their futures are more imperiled.”
The Internet Has a Rat Poison Problem
“How online sales of highly regulated, super-toxic rodenticides exploit gaps in the law and imperil wildlife.”
The Strange, True Story of John Williams and Charles Pennock
“In the early 1900s it wasn’t unusual for men to suddenly go missing. Among them were two accomplished bird experts whose lives turned out to be surprisingly intertwined.”
