Heinrich of the University of Vermont was interviewed for an article entitled “Reasoning Ravens” that was published in Canadian Geographic in 2000. John Spirko of Fort Erie, Ontario, and Sandy Harbanuk of the Juneau Raptor Center are among those who shared their stories with me; Barbara Hodgson provided the fine illustration that appears on page 17. A special word of thanks is due to Dr. Carolee Caffrey, until recently the West Nile virus specialist for the National Audubon Society, USA, for her enthusiasm, knowledge, and generosity.
Crows are generalists, with a keen interest in all things edible. This engraving, by R. Havell, is based on a drawing by John J. Audubon.
Crow lovers one and all, these busy people found time not only to answer my many questions but also, in several cases, to review relevant portions of the text. I am grateful for their collaboration and, most of all, for their crow-like fascination with the world around them.
{ ONE }
The Birds in BLACK
O N AN ISLAND in the South Pacific Ocean, somewhere west of Fiji, a sleek black crow is poking around in the greenery of a sun-streaked rain forest. With its senses sharply focused on the search for food, the bird hops from branch to branch and from plant to plant, jabbing its stout beak into the bases of palm leaves and cocking its head to inspect crannies in the bark. Insects are hidden in there—juicy centipedes, weevils, and grubs—but many of them are out of reach, buried deep in the vegetation or curled up at the bottom of wormholes drilled into the tree trunks.
An ordinary bird might be stymied by these difficulties, but not our crow. Without hesitation, it flies to a nearby tree and picks up a twig that it had left there a few minutes earlier. At first glance, the stick doesn’t look particularly special: it’s just a sprig from a native deciduous tree, Elaeocarpus dognyensis, that has been stripped of leaves and bark. On closer examination, however, you can see that the stump-end of the twig, where the crow snapped it off the branch, has been nibbled to form a tiny hook. And watch what the crow can do with it! Grasping the twig in its bill, the bird flies directly back to its foraging site, positions the stick so that one end is braced against the side of its head, and then deftly inserts the implement, hook first, into the crevice. With a few quick flicks of its beak, the bird works the twig back and forth, then pulls it out, with a tasty insect squirming on the end of it. Crow, the Tool User, in action.
This techno-savvy bird is a New Caledonian crow, Corvus moneduloides, a species found only on the remote islands of Grande Terre and Maré in Melanesia. (New Caledonia is a French colony about a thousand miles northeast of Brisbane.) When the bird’s sophisticated tool behavior was first described by biologist Gavin Hunt of the University of Auckland, New Zealand, in 1996, the news made headlines in the prestigious journal Nature and raised a hitherto little-known species to celebrity status. And as the spotlight fell on the New Caledonian crow, the glow of scientific fascination quickly spilled out to include all the other species of crows around the world.
Raven design from a Viking scabbard mount.
How Crow PERFECTED the Spear
A ccording to the myths of the Aborigines of Australia, there was a time long ago when two great beings, the Eagle and the Crow, were in conflict with each other. Both hunted with spears, but only the Eagle knew how to make spearheads with backward-pointing barbs, which would stay in to make the kill. The Eagle tried to protect its secret, but one night, when everyone else was sleeping, the Crow took the Eagle’s spear-head out of its hiding place and had a good look at it. From then on, the Crow was able to make barbed spearheads and kill its own kangaroos.
From left to right, the carrion crow, the common raven, and two African species, the pied crow and the thick-billed raven.
They’re out there in
Crows are generalists, with a keen interest in all things edible. This engraving, by R. Havell, is based on a drawing by John J. Audubon.
Crow lovers one and all, these busy people found time not only to answer my many questions but also, in several cases, to review relevant portions of the text. I am grateful for their collaboration and, most of all, for their crow-like fascination with the world around them.
{ ONE }
The Birds in BLACK
O N AN ISLAND in the South Pacific Ocean, somewhere west of Fiji, a sleek black crow is poking around in the greenery of a sun-streaked rain forest. With its senses sharply focused on the search for food, the bird hops from branch to branch and from plant to plant, jabbing its stout beak into the bases of palm leaves and cocking its head to inspect crannies in the bark. Insects are hidden in there—juicy centipedes, weevils, and grubs—but many of them are out of reach, buried deep in the vegetation or curled up at the bottom of wormholes drilled into the tree trunks.
An ordinary bird might be stymied by these difficulties, but not our crow. Without hesitation, it flies to a nearby tree and picks up a twig that it had left there a few minutes earlier. At first glance, the stick doesn’t look particularly special: it’s just a sprig from a native deciduous tree, Elaeocarpus dognyensis, that has been stripped of leaves and bark. On closer examination, however, you can see that the stump-end of the twig, where the crow snapped it off the branch, has been nibbled to form a tiny hook. And watch what the crow can do with it! Grasping the twig in its bill, the bird flies directly back to its foraging site, positions the stick so that one end is braced against the side of its head, and then deftly inserts the implement, hook first, into the crevice. With a few quick flicks of its beak, the bird works the twig back and forth, then pulls it out, with a tasty insect squirming on the end of it. Crow, the Tool User, in action.
This techno-savvy bird is a New Caledonian crow, Corvus moneduloides, a species found only on the remote islands of Grande Terre and Maré in Melanesia. (New Caledonia is a French colony about a thousand miles northeast of Brisbane.) When the bird’s sophisticated tool behavior was first described by biologist Gavin Hunt of the University of Auckland, New Zealand, in 1996, the news made headlines in the prestigious journal Nature and raised a hitherto little-known species to celebrity status. And as the spotlight fell on the New Caledonian crow, the glow of scientific fascination quickly spilled out to include all the other species of crows around the world.
Raven design from a Viking scabbard mount.
How Crow PERFECTED the Spear
A ccording to the myths of the Aborigines of Australia, there was a time long ago when two great beings, the Eagle and the Crow, were in conflict with each other. Both hunted with spears, but only the Eagle knew how to make spearheads with backward-pointing barbs, which would stay in to make the kill. The Eagle tried to protect its secret, but one night, when everyone else was sleeping, the Crow took the Eagle’s spear-head out of its hiding place and had a good look at it. From then on, the Crow was able to make barbed spearheads and kill its own kangaroos.
From left to right, the carrion crow, the common raven, and two African species, the pied crow and the thick-billed raven.
They’re out there in
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