21 Interesting Facts About Crows

Here are 21 interesting Crow facts.

1-5 Crow Facts

1. Eight-year-old Gabi Mann of Seattle, Washington receives gifts from crows in her garden. She feeds the crows regularly and little “treasures” are given in return including a miniature silver ball, a black button, a blue paper clip, a yellow bead, a blue Lego piece, and a pearl colored heart. – Source

2. Crows in New Caledonia were found to be bending twigs into hooks to extract food hidden in wooden logs. This confirms that wild birds can make tools. – Source

3. When a crow dies, the other crows investigate if there’s a threat where the death occurred, so they can avoid it in the future. – Source

4. Crows are monogamous and raise families together. Offspring from previous seasons even remain with the family to help rear new nestlings. – Source

5. Crows pass the “marshmallow test”: they resist the temptation to eat a food if they know a tastier treat is coming later. This test of self-control is used to assess mental development in humans. – Source

6-10 Crow Facts

6. The New Caledonian Crow is better at toolmaking than any primate (other than humans) and invents new tools by modifying existing ones, then passing these innovations to other individuals and generations. – Source

7. Crows and owls hate each other and will instinctively attack each other on site, even when they’ve had no previous exposure. – Source

8. Crows recognize human faces and hold grudges against ones they do not like. – Source

9. Crows have different warning calls, one for cats, and one for hawks, and another for humans i.e. 250 in all. – Source

10. Crows hold funerals for fellow crows. Often neighboring crows who didn’t know the now deceased crow or even see it die will attend these funerals. – Source

11-15 Crow Facts

11. Research from Moscow State University & the University of Iowa discovered that crows exhibit strong behavioral signs of analogical reasoning the ability to solve puzzles like “bird is to air as fish is to what?” Analogical reasoning only develops in humans between the ages of three & four. – Source

12. A trained crow named Jimmy the Raven appeared in over 1,000 feature films between 1934 and 1954. – Source

13. Canuck is the crow that attempted to steal a knife from a crime scene in Vancouver where a man had set his car on fire before charging police with a knife. – Source

14. Crows in Tokyo often steal wire coat hangers to add to their nests, which cause blackouts when built on power lines. – Source

15. Female crows will give an alarm cry, and send their mates out to confront the threat while distracted, they’ll mate with crows from a neighboring territory, then pretend to sit on the nest innocently when their mates return home. – Source