In praise of crows
Written by John Macpherson
Crow business © John MacPherson
I like the cleverness of corvids.
Smart birds.
I watched this crow lift whelk shells on the seashore and drop them to smash them open, revealing the tasty morsel inside.
Clever.
I watched (and filmed) two crows trick an otter out of a crab one day. One crow landed behind the otter. The other crow landed in front. When the second crow was on the ground the first crow quietly moved forwards and pecked the otter’s tail. The otter turned round, distracted, and the crow in front nipped in and grabbed the otter’s crab and flew off.
Very very clever.
A man I met who photographs lots of birds told me crows can count very well. “If you want to photograph a buzzard” he said, “you need to put two people in the hide, buzzards can only count to one. So one person stays in the hide and the other comes out. The buzzard then thinks the hide is empty.”
“But crows. Aha. You need eight people!” he said. “Because crows can count up to seven.”
Thats very very very very very very very clever.
That’s mostly why I like crows.
But I like crows because they’ve managed to perfect a much more difficult trick.
Their bodies are darker than their shadows. How do they do that?
Thats too clever for me.
Shadowbirds.
Author — John Macpherson
John MacPherson was born and lives in the Scottish Highlands. He trained as a welder in the Glasgow shipyards, before completing an apprenticeship as a carpenter, and then qualified as a Social Worker in Disability Services. Along the way he has cooked on canal barges, trained as an Alpine Ski Leader & worked as an Instructor for Skiers with disabilities, been a canoe instructor, and tutor of night classes in carpentry, stained glass design and manufacture, and archery. He has travelled extensively on various continents, undertaking solo trips by bicycle, or motorcycle. He has had narrow escapes from an ambush by terrorists, been hit by lightning, caught in an erupting volcano, trapped in a mobile home by a tornado, kidnapped by a dog's hairdresser, rammed by a basking shark and was once bitten by a wild otter. He has combined all this with professional photography, which he has practised for over 35 years. He teaches photography and acts as a photography guide & tutor in the UK and abroad. His biggest challenge is keeping his 30 year old Land Rover 110 on the road. He loves telling and hearing stories.