Discover the Unseen World of Crows: Top 13 Fun Facts That Will Astound You

1. Crow Marriage and Meal Hacks

Forget breadwinning spouses and seafood lovers: crows have unlocked the secret to a satisfying marriage and a delicious, shell-cracking meal! These avian Einsteins have been spotted baiting fish with breadcrusts and giving snails a skydiving experience they'll never forget: Extremely intelligent, crows use bread pieces as bait to catch fish and drop hard-shelled snails from heights to break open their shells. Bonus fact: these social lovebirds mate for life, but still have the audacity to lead double lives – talk about a lifetime drama series!
Source => animalpickings.com

2. Lazy Crow Saturdays

These New Caledonian crows should be the official mascots for “lazy Saturdays,” putting in just enough effort to find their fatty grubs for a good binge-watching session: In fact, these clever crows use specialized tools to fish for beetle larvae that account for almost 50% of their total lipid intake. With just three successful catches, they've earned their daily energy quota and can kick back, thanks to their tool use and a particular tree species introduced by humans on the island.
Source => arstechnica.com

Did you know ravens can judge a "fair" or "unfair" deal? Discover their fascinating cognitive abilities and social cooperation skills in these fun facts! 🧠🐦

=> Fun Facts about Ravens

3. Crows: Nature's Cleanup Crew

Who needs vultures when you have crows on cleanup duty? Next time you see them lurking around, don't shoo them away, they might just be waiting to tidy up our mess: In altered agricultural environments, carrion crows have been found to dominate the scavenging scene, removing carcasses and contributing to a key component of ecosystem function with a whopping 94% of scavenger activity attributed to them.
Source => ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

4. Big Beak is Watching You

If you think Big Brother is watching you, think again: Big Beak is the real monitor! Crows can recognize and remember individual human faces, forming opinions about who's naughty or nice, according to studies by wildlife biologist John Marzluff and his team at the University of Washington in Seattle. No masks or clothing changes can trick these feathered surveillance agents, who share their facial-recognition skills with other species like pigeons, sheep, and even honeybees.
Source => nwf.org

5. Crow Jukebox Extraordinaire

Who needs a parrot when you've got a crow? These feathered minstrels are like the ultimate jukebox, singing everything from coos to growls and even belting out human hits: Crows have a vast range of vocalizations, including caws, rattles, growls, coos, and unique sounds, impressively mimicking human voices and other animals, but their impressive performances don't qualify as language due to the lack of syntax and complex rules.
Source => corvidresearch.blog

6. Crow vs. MacGyver: DIY Showdown

Step aside, MacGyver, there's a new DIY champion in town: crows have been known to create their own tools, with one species in New Caledonia even fashioning hooks and combs out of twigs and leaves, while also exhibiting complex communication skills and mimicking human speech.
Source => pbs.org

7. Sherlock Crows: Masterminds of Memory

If Sherlock Holmes had a spirit animal, it would undoubtedly be a crow: These feathered detectives showcase extraordinary cognitive skills, such as episodic-like memory and future planning, allowing them to recall not just where they stashed their snacks, but also the type of munchies and the precise moment they hid them.
Source => ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

8. Innovative Lunch-Stealing Crows

Here's the scoop on these feathery MacGyvers: New Caledonian crows have been caught red-beaked bending wires into hooks to snatch their lunch! The serious reveal: A 2002 study in Science documented a captive female crow skillfully modifying a straight wire to lift a food-filled bucket from a vertical pipe, marking one of the first instances of purposeful object manipulation as a tool in the animal kingdom.
Source => reflectionsonpaperspast.wordpress.com

9. Boomerang Crows: Living with Parents

Ever wondered if crows invented the "boomerang generation"? You know, kids moving back in with their parents post-college: American crows have a fascinating social structure where offspring stick around with mom and dad for several years, assisting in breeding and territory defense, showcasing a rare cooperative behavior in the avian world.
Source => birds.cornell.edu

10. Crow Family Daycare Dynamics

Home is where the heart is, and for crows, it's also where the family daycare resides: American crows exhibit cooperative breeding behavior, with young birds staying with their parents for years and helping raise new broods, even extending their caregiving services to non-related adult crows.
Source => birds.cornell.edu

11. Disease-Fighting Feathered Friends

Who knew our caw-ful feathered friends could be such unsung heroes, fighting diseases one beak at a time? Armed with an appetite for decomposition, these goth garbage disposals save the day: It turns out that approximately 18% of the black crow population aids in disease control and keeps ecosystems clean by scavenging carcasses, consuming pests, dispersing seeds, and fertilizing the soil with their droppings.
Source => birdsidea.com

12. Crows' Secret Batsignal Vision

Who needs x-ray specs when you've got crow vision? These feathery navigators of the forest don't quite possess superhero-like ultraviolet sight, but they've got the violet-spectrum on lock: Expertly traversing dense foliage and pecking out fruits, crows owe their keen vision to their heightened contrast perception, with their iridescent feathers acting as a secret communication tool - a crow's very own Batsignal, if you will, signaling age, sex, and territory ownership.
Source => corvidresearch.blog

13. Murder Mystery: The Crow Edition

What do collective "crow" puns and a Game of Thrones reunion have in common? Both are a murder most fowl! But worry not, dear reader: crows are actually intelligent birds with a complex language, known to hold makeshift funerals for their fallen comrades and recognize human faces. They might even beat you at pecking at your dinner plate, although contrary to popular belief, they won't raid their fellow birds' nests to steal eggs or hatchlings.
Source => pestpointers.com