I can vouch for this approach. I lived in the territory of a couple of ravens (close relatives of crows; just as smart and twice as large) and it took me maybe 18 months to build a close relationship.
I started out just talking to them and throwing whole peanuts (roasted, unsalted) on the ground while I was doing it. They looked at me warily and did not come close. Later on, the peanuts would disappear, but I was never sure why. This period lasted months.
Eventually they would come down when I threw a peanut and approach it warily. If it was closer than 15 or 20 feet to me, I'd have to back away to give them enough room. Then I could throw another peanut near (but not at!) them and they'd walk over to get it.
After many more months of this (six, I'd guess) they were somewhat less wary of me and would hang out on our back fence sometimes. So we worked out a ritual. I would place a piece of food on the fence rail and back away; they'd hop over and get it. As he suggested, I would talk with them as I did it. I'm sure the words didn't matter, but I suspect the tone did, and it helped me focus on being soothing with voice, body language, and behavior.
Toward the end of my time there we got so that one of them would take high-value food, like a chicken bone with bits of meat left on it, straight out of my hand. That one, who we called George, would happily sit pretty close to me after eating. Out of arm's reach, of course; they were still a bit wary. But it would settle down and chill out. Truly a magical experience to just hang out with a big, smart bird like that. You looking at one another, both trying to figure out exactly what the other's deal is. And me, at least, knowing, that I'd never fully know.
My amateur theory is that talking makes you less likely to be a predator. You basically say “here I am”, Predators tend to be quiet and sneak up on their prey. I think the tone does indeed help somewhat in my experience.
Yes, of course. Your tone has to convey not only, "I am not a predator" but also "I do not perceive you as a threat, and so the purpose of my vocalization is not to scare you away because I perceive you as a threat, and if you come close I am likely to try to harm you in order to defend myself."
In nature, the Bayesian prior on an entity that is not a member of your species, or even your tribe, seeking an interaction with you that will ultimately be to your benefit is very, very low.
Felis Catus: OK, stubclaws, listen up. You're going to toil the fields and by the sweat of your brow fill up a barn to attract my mice. Got that? Agriculture, Architecture, the works? Good. I'd explain to you how to make laser pointers for chasing, but I doubt you'd understand ... your kind always has to work things out for themselves, anyway. Now go forth and do your best to hold this covenant, you inflexible hairless monkey.
Felis Catus: Correction, human. It was always my keyboard. You were just using it without my permission, and I reappropriated it when I felt like it. Now, go get me some wet cat food for your slanderous outburst before I send you to the cat food factory permanently.
Sorry, nope. Had one of my replies called a "nonsensical answer produced by an AI" in a different thread, so I done did my best to outpace the machine with that one.
When 082... was jus' a little baby, sittin' on their papa's knee
Well they picked up a keyboard and a little CRT
Said keyboard gon' be the death of me, lord, lord
Keyboard gon' be the death of me
Hummingbirds I've noticed are very curious about other creatures. To a fault even, mantises will sometimes exploit this to catch hummingbirds (they are much more powerful than you might expect). I don't know if this is universal across hummingbird species/groups, but I'm able get very close to them by just patiently standing still by the feeder for 10 or 15 minutes, and they'll start investigating me.
I have noticed this about hummingbirds as well. We have a feeder on our deck and if you are out there when they are feeding expect to receive an inspection. I like to think the thought in their brain is “are you a flower?”
I’ve also had a hummingbird come within a few centimeters of landing on my hand while mounting biking (stopped, of course). I credit my new-at-the-time bright red gloves for that interaction.
Growing up my great grandmother kept about 3 dozen hummingbird feeders near her back porch at her farm so she could watch the hummingbirds as they fed. She easily went through 4 gallons of sugar water per day. I was told as a kid that she had been documented as having altered the migration paths of several flocks of hummingbirds because she had been maintaining her feeders for over 30 years at the time of her death and they would remember where her farm was.
They would flit past your head when you went out to refill them, but they seldom went more than a few feet away. You could stand under under the feeders and after a few minutes, if you were calm enough, they would start be willing to land on you and rest, or lick off any syrup you had gotten on your hands.
My sister had one land on her finger and point with its head to which flowers it wanted her to move her hand to. This was without a feeder, but in an area with lots of people around (at a winery).
I can go outside holding a feeder and as long as I stand still, after about a minute the hummers will feed while I'm holding the thing. Brave little birds.
Nasty little birds. We put out a feeder, and they battle each other for it, even when there's plenty for all. It's a good thing they don't decide to gang up on humans; they could do a lot of damage while we're still looking at where they were a hundred wingbeats ago.
There are quite a few symbiotic relationships in nature.
There are several examples where small birds, mammals, fish, or even some invertebrates clean much larger animals. The exchange straightforward, large animal gets clean smaller one eats the parasites, etc. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleaning_symbiosis
> There are quite a few symbiotic relationships in nature.
Yes, of course, but unless such a relationship is already established the odds are very much against a random encounter between different species being mutually beneficial.
The interesting bit around cleaning is the relationships are between individual animals rather than being species wide. Some species of fish for example will mix in removal of parasites with drinking some blood and larger animals eating the cleaners also happens.
Makes sense to me. Crows have caught me tree climbing under them during their evening flights to the communal roost, the result was always a chaotic mess. They just couldn't leave it alone. Without fail, eventually one crow would notice and start the alarm call, then the hundreds of crows arriving at the situation would break off flight and begin mobbing as well.
I sometimes end up crossing paths with birds while rock climbing. You try to avoid them where possible (especially if they are protected/endangered) but it's not always possible to spot them from the ground. Peregrines will warn you by swooping past you really fast, even if you are 10s of meters to the side of their nest.
It can sometimes end up in a weird kind of stand off, where they can see your path is through their nest or perch but they don't really know what your intent is so you just end up staring at each other. The most aggressive I came across was a big seagull, which I'm pretty sure was protecting it's eggs since it clearly wasn't going to move, thankfully that line was easy enough that I could just figure out an alternate way around. Climbing you also sometimes get to see some of the horrific remains from the predators - One time towards the end of covid lockdowns some peregrines had reclaimed a pinnacle due to the unusual absence of climbers. When I got to the top it looked like a sacrificial temple, filled with the carcases of all the other bird species, not to mention the bees nest en route, that one was a mini adventure.
Great video. Were you scared? I once walked under some trees in which many crows were roosting. Scared the crap out of me. I thought they were going to attack. Maybe they had young and wanted to protect them, I don’t know, but I ran.
For a second I thought I was dead. But, when I heard all the noise, I knew they were cops. Only cops talk that way. If they'd been wiseguys, I wouldn't have heard a thing. I would've been dead.
I have an amateur theory that strange wildlife, unlike strange people, are made much more comfortable by avoiding eye contact.
Parent comment would explain this observation: predators gaze upon their prey.
(flipping the arrows around, I've seen the advice to dance tango, not so much with "snappiness" as is popularly supposed, but in a predatory manner: slow stalking, interspersed with rapid pounces)
This is definitely true for dogs/canids, eye contact is a signal of dominance and/or aggression. It’s common advice to soften your glance if you’re approaching an unfamiliar or potentially aggressive dog. It’s also helpful to make more direct eye contact when establishing you’re in charge when training them.
I’ve also noticed with many birds that they prefer indirect attention. This includes not just eye contact, but pointing a camera (or really anything) in their direction. Which unfortunately means I have very little photographic evidence of the many times I’ve had birds just hanging around being pleasant companions for a while.
The birds around here don't stick around long enough to let me earn their trust, but I can get pretty close to the deer, rabbits, and squirrels just by pointing the camera off to my side so I'm standing perpendicular and appear to be focused on stuff on the ground instead of them.
Oh damn I meant to mention rabbits! At least the ones around me don’t even mind if I point a camera at them so long as I’m looking another way. So I have lots of good blurry or poorly aimed rabbit photos. They really do seem to believe that if they go totally still nothing can see them until proven otherwise. And maybe they’re right, I almost always have to tell my pup “there’s a bun!” And even then it’s usually after I’ve directed her chase before she sees the fleeing things.
You see a rabbit mostly against the grass or bush it's hiding around. A dog sees it against all the scattered terrain behind it. It's amazing how much difference an extra 4-5 feet of height makes for picking thigs out of a background.
This is a perfectly reasonable explanation, but I actively try to get my pup to see the buns around her and she stops seeing them when they stand still even if she had already seen them. She’s a very smart pup, but has a distinct bunny blindness!
I have read this somewhere, not sure where, but by someone very much in touch with nature. He called it the "lost car keys" approach. Always approach animals as if looking for your car keys on the ground: avoiding eye contact, and not in a straight line.
Preference for eye contact varies with culture (among other factors). While people in a place like USA might regard a person who avoids eye contact as sneaky or untrustworthy, people in a place like Japan are more likely to regard direct eye contact as a sign that they are distrusted by the person.
(I volunteer at a Raptor conservancy). Totally. Making eye contact with a big predator generally means either ‘I want to eat you’ or ‘I want to make love to you’. But you also have to maintain situational awareness, to avoid getting a clout on the head from some big talons
on serious note, interesting. i have blind spots in the eye, due to an auto immune type condition. since the blind spots are near central vision, brain tends to 'fill' or predict whats there. so i tend to sometimes misread words.
> I can vouch for this approach. I lived in the territory of a couple of ravens (close relatives of crows; just as smart and twice as large)
Here's the thing. You're suggesting a raven is as intelligent as a crow. Are they in the same family? Yes, Corvus. But scientists who study crows, will tell say, specifically, crows are smarter than ravens. But it would be okay for either of us to just admit we're wrong, you know?
I talk to them and throw cashews at them from my balcony. They have gotten pretty close in a matter of weeks, despite having a cat (she is scared of them tbh and I think they know). I also leave some nuts on the railing near my back door for them to grab (make sure they watch me place them) so they can get them when I go inside (my cat loves watching this and the little birds). Though sometimes they do a quick grab if there's some distance. It really is a lot of fun and to watch their behavior patterns. For example, there will often only be one or two on the ground and checking things out while more in the trees or roofs. Once they realize those two are not dying from the food you feed there's a few caws and more come down. The spotters are the ones that make the quick grabs at my railing and it took a bit for this to happen so I think they trust me some. In a different place I lived one crow came right up to me, just out of arm's reach, for sunflower seeds. They really are smart and friendly creatures. They'll even talk back a bit.
I belong to an ancestor worshiping culture(தமிழ்|Tamizh), Crows have very high reverence here as they're believed to be carrying our ancestors soul.
So each day many people here feed the crows first with rice before breakfast and on new moon day many undergo fasting, Make special food and give it to the crows first.
Obviously crows , Extraordinarily intelligent as they are keep perfect timings for their food and seems to know the lunar phases; No wonder we revere them.
Tamilian here. There was a crow that would come and insist upon getting Biscuits only from my mother, pre covid. It would sit on the balcony handrail and caw until she goes to the fridge, then quietly wait for the biscuit, take it from her hand and leave. If she's out of Biscuits and gives it something else it would become quite offended, refuse the food and sit there cawing pitieously. I learned that Biscuits are bad for them and told her. She tried to change to curd rice - it started to accept that if it was hot and fresh.
Of course like you said, we caw for them and give them food during festivals and anniversaries of deaths of ancestors.
My grandmother used to do the same with squirrels and chipmunks - but only leave the nuts out for the first few times, then she'd bring them back in after waiting for a bit. They immediately figured it out and would come down to get them on future attempts. I imagine the same would work with crows.
I love this. Thank you for sharing. I’ve always found crows and ravens to be majestic birds, even with the reputations they have. Thank you for being kind to them.
If you have a pet parrot you can get a more personal glimpse of their intelligence. We have a cockatiel and it’s interesting to get to know another intelligent species from a different branch of the tree.
You will also get a more personal glimpse at their tyranny. I type this as my conure is having a fit because I wouldn’t share any French fries with him.
Never know. And so interesting that they are dinosaurs, literally. They will probably win in the end with our own oh-so-clever Warming pushing us out. Dinos the winners.
I started out just talking to them and throwing whole peanuts (roasted, unsalted) on the ground while I was doing it. They looked at me warily and did not come close. Later on, the peanuts would disappear, but I was never sure why. This period lasted months.
Eventually they would come down when I threw a peanut and approach it warily. If it was closer than 15 or 20 feet to me, I'd have to back away to give them enough room. Then I could throw another peanut near (but not at!) them and they'd walk over to get it.
After many more months of this (six, I'd guess) they were somewhat less wary of me and would hang out on our back fence sometimes. So we worked out a ritual. I would place a piece of food on the fence rail and back away; they'd hop over and get it. As he suggested, I would talk with them as I did it. I'm sure the words didn't matter, but I suspect the tone did, and it helped me focus on being soothing with voice, body language, and behavior.
Toward the end of my time there we got so that one of them would take high-value food, like a chicken bone with bits of meat left on it, straight out of my hand. That one, who we called George, would happily sit pretty close to me after eating. Out of arm's reach, of course; they were still a bit wary. But it would settle down and chill out. Truly a magical experience to just hang out with a big, smart bird like that. You looking at one another, both trying to figure out exactly what the other's deal is. And me, at least, knowing, that I'd never fully know.