Soma
Sacred Earth => Animals, Birds, and all our other creature friends [Public] => Topic started by: Nichi on January 17, 2012, 06:34:00 AM
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The family who recorded these events had their volume set to (too) high: heads up. It's all in the visual, anyway...
http://www.youtube.com/v/YP9RnDp_tms?version=3
".....You'll observe a crow (probably a 'hooded crow') pick up the lid to a jar, set it down on the apex of a snow-mottled roof and slide down one side, carefully keeping its feet on the lid until it gets to the bottom. Then it picks up the lid, flies back to the apex, tests out another face of the roof, finds it lacking, returns to the original position, and slides down again.
It is a remarkable demonstration of the intelligence of the crow, which sits on a smart branch in the animal tree within the family Corvidae. There is something so deliberate about this play: the crow uses a toy; it searches for the best sledding path; it repeats the adventure down the roof; it keeps upright with its feet planted on the lid when, as a bird, it could simply fly. The bird does not want to travel down the roof, it wants to slide down the roof....."
~Alex Madrigal for The Atlantic, in Science Can Neither Explain or Deny the Awesomeness of This Sledding Crow (http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/01/science-can-neither-explain-nor-deny-the-awesomeness-of-this-sledding-crow/251395/).
Then, Alex vaguely considers his own anthropomorphism: but I think it's pretty clear --- the crow has found something interesting and fun to do. :) ;)
Another marvel for our friends in the Crow Tribe!
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I saw that video too, amazing!
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crows!