One of the craziest behaviors I have seen was from a murder of American crows in a big city area sidewalk I walk down frequently - occasionally, I have observed homeless and vagrants throwing stuff at them, because sometimes they sleep under the powerlines where the crows like to perch and I think the crows defecate on them or something.

It's well known they can carry grudges, but one day, as I was walking down the sidewalk, a pretty sizable rock smacked the pavement next to me, seemingly out of nowhere. If it had hit my head I would have been hurt. I finally look up and see a big crow staring directly down at me - it had dropped it from the power lines, it had seemingly been intentional, maybe as a warning, I don't know. I attributed it to malice towards the vagrants that harass them.

I was amazed at how much intelligence it would take to 1) form a grudge 2) form intent to threaten/harm, 3) formulate a plan using a weapon with cause -> effect to execute intent, 4) wait for opportunity.

I have observed a lot of very intelligent behaviors from these birds but that was the wildest one. I have seen it happen once since, so I'm convinced it isn't an accident.

Wonderful timing. Me and my daughter just started to feed and befriend a crow in our backyard. We started by putting out a few pieces of cat foot, shaking the plastic container and tapping on the table we put it on to signal to the crow we had put out food. Within only 2 days the crow has learned to come and swoop down for his meal within just a minute or two after he does his normal fly-by passes. Now only about 5 days in, and we have the crow coming right down to eat as we put out the food, not much of a care that we are there. My daughter wants to start training it to bring trinkets or coins so that is probably next on the agenda.

One thing I didn’t not really account for is that now in the morning when I step outside our new friend really lays on the noises of excitement as he knows a meal is about to be served.

Equipping cats and dogs with talking buttons (see, for example, https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLBh-BXgsO9IjhN-thTLvm... or https://www.youtube.com/@floundercat) has shown me there is a lot more going in their little heads than I suspected. There are examples of cats describing their dreams, or worrying about what will happen in the future, or theorizing about the nature of the world (in a very naive way).

Birds have higher neural density than mammals (https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1517131113) so can pack a lot into their tiny heads. I do wonder what they'd have to say, if given the chance.

Chasing a bird of lesser intelligence so that it slams into an office building window seems especially cruel.

Here is one playing ball: https://youtube.com/watch?v=QqLU-o7N7Kw

This one is feeding a dog: https://youtube.com/watch?v=q7Z0yZhyz0s

Teasing an owl: https://youtube.com/watch?v=Y0i9tjnW7r0

Probably Grip?

Corvid-19 ?