Category: Nature

Regular readers here, and people who know me in general, know that I’m fascinated by UFOs (or UAPs as the government now likes to refer to them as) and the possibilities of alien life. So, you know I’m interested in a new documentary, The Age of Disclosure, which just came out and apparently once again suggests that governments and militaries have know they do exist for decades. What’s more, the U.S. and Russia at least (and possibly other countries like Germany and Britain) have recovered alien aircraft and are working hard to retro-engineer them to understand and copy the amazing technology. That’s almost old news by now. I’ve read that Secretary of State Marco Rubio not only confirms that but says he’s encountered extra-terrestrial intelligent life here. Sounds fascinating and I’ll be looking it up soon.

But to change gears, another thing that has long fascinated me is nature. Birds in particular are dear to me and seem fascinating in their variety and abilities, such as (to point out the obvious), flying. So I loved one of the books I read this fall, Gifts of the Crow, by Marzluff and Angell, two biologists who’ve studied “corvids” for decades.

Corvids is the scientific name for the Crow family, a range of birds that include familiar big, black birds like ravens, crows and their European cousins, the jackdaws, but also magpies and jays such as the Blue Jay. Yes, the familiar and colorful bird that became a baseball symbol is a corvid too; basically a small, colorful crow. I’ve long read that the Corvids are the smartest of birds, but this book confirms that and takes it to another level with its case studies. Anyone who reads it will not use the term “bird brain” as an insult again.

In a nutshell, among the things it highlights are their problem-solving abilities which, to be quite honest about it, surpass some humans; their incredible memories and apparent ability to pass along specific information to new generations; their love of playing; their learning capacity; their ability in some specific cases to seemingly understand a few words of human vocabulary (much like your family dog which learns commands like “stay” or “sit”) and even their very human-like ability to have emotions such as liking, disliking and feeling sorrow. Kinda makes you look at that crow flying by in a different light, doesn’t it?

Among the studies, crows have been able to figure out how to make and use tools. When some food they liked was put in a little basket deep inside a tall jar the bird couldn’t reach, when given some flexible wire strands, more than once the birds figured out they could bend the wire, make a hook and perch on top of the jar, lower the hook and pull upwards with their beak until the basket came out and fell out, giving them their food. Others quickly learned how to drop pebbles in a jar full of water that had food at the bottom, to cause enough water to spill out as to let them reach in and grab the food. Seems like we might have a slimmer but more intelligent class of kids if we made them get their school lunch in such fashion!

Jays given a cache of nuts or acorns to bury for winter have shown an almost infallible ability to recover them all weeks later, even when the ground is covered in snow, or items have been moved around in the scene to make it look different.

There are many records of crows and ravens seeming to just… play. Have fun. They’ve been observed picking up sticks, dropping them, to let the bird below catch it, then fly up and drop it for the other and so on. Some ravens learned how to peel big swaths of bark off trees and use it on windy days as a sort of sailboard; clinging to the bark with their talons as the wind pushes it along. Seeing the world like a bird but without having to expend energy flapping. You could charge people big money to do the same… oh, wait we do already!

There are many references to their ability to recognize and either bond with, or torment specific people for years. One scientist who climbed up to their nests and handled the babies (to band them, weigh them etc., not to harm them) found himself being chased … not only by the parent birds, but soon by other crows in the neighborhood. Astoundingly, this continued for years, even when the birds doing it were shown to be descendants of the originals. And, trying to change clothes or drive a different car didn’t help – the crows still knew!

On the reverse side, people who’ve been kind to them not only get a pass but frequently find the birds delivering them gifts! Many a person has seen a resident crow or raven they feed reliably fly in and drop something man-made, things like bottle caps or keys mostly, shiny and metal, by them. One can only assume the birds are trying to thank the people for their kindness and have the concept at least of natural vs man-made and figure we would like our own stuff better! Perhaps the ultimate example of that was a pair of magpies in Sweden who visited a house with a feeder kept well-stocked by the lady of the house. The man however, disliked them and would throw rocks at them. After awhile, the magpies learned to use the doorbell to get the woman’s attention! Apparently they saw people come and go and noted that when a human pushed that button, someone opened the door. But, they didn’t want to see that rock-throwing man, so yep, they waited until he went out and got in his car and drove before hitting the doorbell. They also gave her little gifts. The man though, was given a different “gift” – they routinely pooped on the window of his car. Not hers though. He tried changing parking places with her; the birds knew it right away and kept delivering to his windshield.

It’s a fascinating book, albeit one that’s quite boring and dry in places. A lot of pages are devoted to actual studies of the birds’ brains, even to the point of successfully giving them MRIs and talking at length about the synapses, thalamuses, hyper-palliums and so on. The short takeaway on all those sections is that the brains are structured similarly to human and monkey ones and occupy at least as much of their heads as do monkey and ape ones. One could almost say they are basically “flying monkeys” albeit a lot less intimidating that the ones in Oz. Unless you throw stones at them.

It got me thinking. Perhaps when the day arrives that a UFO flies down, lands on the White House lawn and opens its invisible door, it’s not going to be a little skinny “Gray” coming out. I think it might be a big, space-age raven.