Crows Keep Bringing Presents To Woman Who Is Kind To Them

[catbyte]

“The fact that it really is a gift makes it precious."

BY STEPHEN MESSENGER

A few years back, Melinda Green began noticing crows would occasionally drop by for a rest on her fire escape in San Francisco.

Rather than shoo the birds away, as some people might, Green decided to welcome them.



“I just started putting out some food on my fire escape when I'd see them,” Green told The Dodo.



Simply watching the crows was reward enough for Green — but apparently, the birds decided she deserved something more.

One day, a crow arrived at Green’s fire escape with an object in his mouth and placed it where she could reach it.



It was a piece of crumpled-up foil from the top of a champagne bottle — one man's litter, yes, but apparently a shiny treasure in the eyes of the crow.

He’d brought it, so it would seem, as a gift for Green. And she was delighted to accept it.

“I was thrilled, of course,” Green said.



Green admits to being somewhat skeptical at first that the foil was actually meant for her.

But then the gifts just kept on coming.

In time, the crows brought her various items — like colorful rocks, bones, nuts from shells. Once, they even brought her a gummy bear.



Green chose not to eat it, but she appreciated the gesture regardless.



The crows’ most recent gift to Green is a somewhat mysterious object.



Though probably just a broken-off piece of machinery, it does have an artful quality the birds must have thought Green would like.

And she did.

“The fact that it really is a gift makes it precious,” Green said.



It’s difficult to say for certain what’s inspired this outpouring of generosity, but it seems Green has endeared herself to the crows by the kindness she showed them first.

“I suspect it's similar to young human crushes,” she said.



By now, Green has become better acquainted with the crows than she likely ever expected. In fact, over the years she's seen them grow up to start families of their own, introducing a new generation to Green's welcoming fire escape.

"I've learned just how similar crow families and dynamics are to human families," she said. "They seem to have long-term relationships and to raise one or two children at a time in nuclear families. The parents are clearly actively teaching their children. They clearly want to show them where the nice lady lives and how to get treats from her."

Green says the experience with the crows has shown her how to "recognize and respect their personhood."

And, in the end, that may be the greatest gift of all.

https://www.thedodo.com/in-the-wild/crows-bring-gifts-to-kind-woman

[3catwoman3]

1. Whatever that mystery item is, it's rather cool...

...looking. It might make an interesting pendant on a leather thong or chunky chain of some kind, and what an interesting conversation piece it would be.

[DonaldsRump]

5. I think what that mystery item is...

...is called love.

I am forever gratified about the love that animals show humans.

[link:https://vimeo.com/262481000|

[aka-chmeee]

18. What that is....

is a standoff for flat TV antenna twinlead. Either screwed into house or roof to hold the antenna wire or mounted on the antenna mast.

[tinrobot]

19. The long item with the round top? It is a TV cable standoff.

Usually used to run the TV antenna/cable wire into the house.

https://www.amazon.com/3-5-Wood-Screw-Standoff-Insulators/dp/B006558WAE

[usaf-vet]

42. The item she has in her hand in the last photo. Is a standoff to carry a cable. Probably TV cable.

What a great story. I live in northern Wisconsin. We have crows and ravens here. Usually, they nest in some tall pine trees in the neighborhood. There are times when they can be very annoying especially in the early morning hours of the day when they nesting and communicating with each other. They are fun to watch although they are standoffish for the most part. Especially when there are young ones testing their wings



Here is an interesting book Mind of the Raven, Bernd Heinrich, 1999

https://www.amazon.com/Mind-Raven-Investigations-Adventures-Wolf-Birds/dp/0061136050/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?keywords=Mind+of+the+Raven%2C+Bernd+Heinrich%2C+1999&qid=1568135722&s=arts-crafts&sr=8-1-fkmr0

[Arkansas Granny]

2. PBS had a couple of documentaries about crows. Their intelligence surprised me.

[DeminPennswoods]

66. That was an amazing show

The crows solved pretty difficult puzzles to get their reward/treat in about 10 seconds. Dogs, otoh, were completely mystified when given a similar task.

[Thomas Hurt]

3. Crows are smart.

[tblue37]

17. These crows use moving cars to crack nuts in a crosswalk, using the lights to let

them know when it's safe:

https://m.

The use of traffic lights at the crosswalk starts around 1:50, but the whole thing is worth watching.

[Hekate]

39. I've watched crows do that with liquidambar tree pods. A good wind comes and the street ....

...gets covered with the round spiky pods. They're really a nuisance on the sidewalk, because a person could easily slip and fall. But all the ones in the street are something else. The cars drive over the pods, essentially threshing the seeds out of them, and the next thing you know a big flock of crows lands in the middle of the street to pick over the good stuff.

Crows are very smart and social, but I think they are bullies. One type of smaller bird that won't put up with them is the mockingbird, and to see a pair of wrathful mockingbirds take after a much larger crow is really something.

I think stories like the OP are really neat, and I wouldn't mind experiencing this form of interspecies communication for myself.

[cannabis_flower]

49. Mockingbirds can be bullies too.

I've seen a pair of mockingbirds chase a squirrel across the street. But it could have been the mockingbirds protecting a nest.

[Hekate]

52. I always understood it to be nest protection

I like watching birds, but have been handicapped by nearsightedness (yes I wear glasses). They have to be in just the right spot for me to see them -- for instance, please don't bother to point one out that is sitting among leaves; it's just irritating -- but over a lifetime I managed to tick off a satisfying number in The Handbook of California Birds and got fairly good at identifying flight sillhouettes. My absolute favorite was the great blue heron breasting the waves as we took a late afternoon beach walk. He was still there when twilight made him invisible. Moved into the foothills a couple of years ago -- have seen a covey of quail once, many hawks, crows, scrub jays, thrashers, and unfortunately a whole bunch of what I have to call "little brown birds" because I can't distinguish their markings, if any. Somebody has taken up residence in a bush by the master bedroom and has a beautiful liquid trill, but as I say -- leaves.

[Ilsa]

64. Oh, no, mockingbirds are sometimes bullies.

I've had friends walking along on the sidewalk, where others are walking, no trees crowding the sidewalk, and a mockingbird attacks their hair or head, not a nest in sight. (Hitchcockian)

[Hekate]

65. Our local small airport had a nesting hawk in the vines surrounding one entrance...

She used to divebomb random people passing through -- she got me one time, just pecked the top of my head once, hard. Ouch.

I think the airport manager decided to wait till the end of nesting season in order to clear it all out and make the vines less hospitable.

[Marthe48]

54. I saw a robin attack a rabbit.

The rabbit was taking a dust bath and the robin flew at it. Startled the rabbit so it leaped in the air and took off running. Not something you see every day. I usually see the squirrels run at the mourning doves to chase them away from the birdseed I put out. Probably the only exercise the doves get. lol

[DarthDem]

4. That's A Really Nice Story

She was kind the to crows and they've shown kindness in return. Awww.

[FM123]

6. Kindness is the gift that keeps on giving.

[mopinko]

7. the object is a cable holder. prolly from an old phone line.

[Boxerfan]

8. Phone wire insulator.

That is what the mystery item is.


Wire with voltage-likely low-passes through center-which is rubber. Probably found on a old roof.

------------

I used to feed a lot of ducks when I lived on a boat in the San Rafael canal. There were a few ducks with hip dysplasia(so?) so I fed them to keep them from starving to death.

Not much later I'm feeding about 100 ducks.

Anyhow after a while I started getting "gifts" from the local seagulls. They were all human figures-toys and they laid them on the deck so I could "help" them I assumed. I never gave seagulls that much credit till I lived on the water. They are scavengers but why not- but they "play" with each other. And that is a higher intelligence sign.

[Duppers]

10. Gulls!

Wow, thanks. I never knew.

[Duppers]

9. "recognize and respect their personhood."

They're just amazing and Melinda is a kind and wonderful person. Good for her.

The stories about crows really touch me because it seems a bit sad that we're only recently recognizing crows' "personhood."

They're really such intelligent, thinking critters with a keen sense of justice and gratitude.

[Marthe48]

12. I read crows are the only birds that play

and they are very smart. I kept a crow for about a year when I was a teen. It flew free when it was ready.

[Duppers]

13. Wow, what an experience that must have been!

Please posted more about it when you have time.

Thanks. 🙏

[Marthe48]

30. Thanks for asking

It was 1970. My neighbor's husband had cut down a tree and the there was a crow's nest. He brought the young survivor home, thinking his wife could do something with it. She wanted nothing to to with it, and brought it over to me, because she knew I liked animals. I named him Grog, after the B.C. comic character and because the crow made a gravelly noise that sounded like grog. I had him with me at my Mom's house and he seemed content to stay with us. We fed him dry dog food, moistened with water, and meat. He wasn't much trouble. He got along with the other animals we had, cats and dogs. I graduated from high school and moved back up to Cleveland to stay with my dad and Gram and took Grog with me. I stayed in my brothers' old bedroom, basically the unfinished attic, and there was a large cage still in the room. One of my Dad's customer's at his store had a Capuchin monkey that he needed to rehome, and my older brother agreed to take her. When that monkey died a couple of years later, my brother went to the dime store (Kresges) and bought another monkey, a Rhesus. She was young and got in trouble, mainly because she figured out how to get out of the cage and then out of the house. He ended up donating her to Cleveland zoo, but the cage was probably 8'x6'x6' and no one took it out. I put Grog in the cage, and at first, he liked it. But I got a full-time job, so I was gone a lot during the week days. Grog figured out how to get out of the cage and spent the rest of his time in Cleveland pecking my things apart and pooping all over. He got hold of my graduation tassel and tore it apart. I met my future husband so toward the end of the summer, I'd ride back down to my Mom's house, with Grog, and maybe my cat, and hang out with him on the weekends. Grog would hang out with us while we sat on the lawn. John and the other guys smoked, and once Grog pulled an unlit cigarette out of a pack laying the blanket and hopped away with it. My younger brother was still living with my Mom, and he agreed to keep Grog with him. We all felt the bird was old enough to decide if he wanted to stay or go. My Mom's house was out in the country, old dairy farms, hills, trees, not really far from where Grog was found. So they made him a perch and feeding area at the end of the covered, but open side porch. He flew around over the fields and into the trees, but would come back to his perch, and I'd see him when I came down from Cleveland to visit. He lived with my Mom and brother the rest of the summer, and then left for good. I thought I had him for a year, but after writing, I think it must have been about 6 or 7 months. My mom lived in southern Ohio and we had gotten to know several of the local people. There were several old farmers or their wives who said I needed to slit Grog's tongue and he'd talk, but I thought it sounded mean and didn't harm him.

[Duppers]

41. What a lovely story!

Thanks for sharing those sweet memories here. I hope Grog found a mate and a flock and had a happy long life.








Crows (and elephants) mourn and have funerals!
https://www.audubon.org/news/a-funeral-crows

Crows Are as Intelligent as a Seven-Year-Old Child

https://www.nathab.com/blog/crows-are-as-intelligent-as-a-seven-year-old-child/

[Marthe48]

53. You're welcome

Always fun to reminisce. I was lucky to have a wild pet and glad he flew free.

[erronis]

26. I think we are only now starting to understand that many, many species

have intelligence.

We always measure other species against ourselves. But every species has to have its own type of coping with the environment.

And I've seen many birds exhibit intelligence other than the corvids.

And I've seen many hominids exhibit less intelligence than a gnat.

[Marthe48]

32. I feed the birds and squirrels in my yard.

I think while I watch them. The squirrels, chipmunks and some of the birds cache seeds. I realized that however they know it, they are aware there is a future and prepare for it. It is pretty funny when a squirrel buries a seed, and as soon as she is done burying it, and moves away from it, a blue jay will come right to it, dig the seed up and steal it.

[brush]

40. Crows, ravens, magpies and jays are all part of the corvid family. All very smart and cable of...

complex reasoning and problem solving.

[sarge43]

43. 007 solves a complex problem

[brush]

44. Thanks for the video. I love info on these smart creatures.

[Marthe48]

61. So smart!

Wish they'd run for office

[BumRushDaShow]

56. Like this

[Marthe48]

60. Wonderful!

Watched them both

[Marthe48]

11. I read about a family in Washington

or Oregon who fed crows and got gifts. I think the birds I feed leave me things once in awhile. I have found 2 or 3 objects at the end of my sidewalk that just appeared.

I thought they were dropped by neighbors, or washed out by the rain, but then I read about the crows leaving gifts in Washington or Oregon and thought maybe I was lucky. I always put the crow's food as far from the house as I can, so they feel secure

[tblue37]

15. A young girl also got gifts from cross she fed. I remember reading an article about her. nt

[tblue37]

14. Crows are cool--and incredibly smart. nt

[flotsam]

16. A couple of poster were close

and it IS an insulator of sorts-they were screwed into wood trim on houses to secure and guide the wire from a TV antenna down to the lower floors where one or two TVs might be. That is why the center hole is not round. As installed the hole was an oblong to allow the old two wire ribbon cables to pass thru it.

[yonder]

20. The entire Corvid family is very smart.

And is a good example, once again, that we have much to learn from the natural world around us - if we allow it.

Right now, it looks like we are heading in the wrong direction with our human dominion bullshit.

[zentrum]

21. That is a druidic

...wand.

Just kidding.

Maybe.

Love crows. They're absolutely compelling.

[Mrs. Overall]

22. I love this story! Crows are brilliant.

[GETPLANING]

23. Crows are extremely intelligent.

Crows have been seen waiting for crossing lights to change, then dropping walnut shells in the street for traffic to crush. When the lights turn red again, they hop out into the street and pick up the cracked nuts to eat.
On a university campus, students captured a few crows to draw blood samples from them. For the next few years, those very students were harassed by the local crows WHEREVER THEY WENT. Only the students who had participated in capturing and releasing the crows. They wore disguises but in many cases the crows still recognized them and began harassing them.
There are many more stories of how smart crows and ravens are.

[Botany]

27. Crows are part of the corvidaes

Very smart birds. I had a Canada Jay that used to "steal" fishing lures and hang them around camp no higher then what we could reach and used to sit and watch us find them. By the 2nd day we just put a dozen on a table before we went fishing.

[Silver Gaia]

35. Yes! They are all very smart!

We had a Scrub Jay who lived with us for 18 years. We found her as a little fledgling. Her feet were deformed, and she had fallen in the back yard. We knew she wouldn't make it on her own outdoors (cats would kill her), so we researched what to do and raised her as part of the family. She learned to hop around on her twisted feet, and even "danced" when we played music she liked. She was as happy as she could be. Nothing like a Jay screeching inside your house! LOL They make sweet, little "quacking" noises when they are feeling contented and happy, too. And they are great mimics. She learned to speak parakeet, and would sing along with them. I miss her.

We leave food for the backyard Scrub Jays now, and they reward us with their antics. There's one we call Springsteen because he wants to be "the boss" when we're working outside. He supervises everything. He'll take peanuts from the table where we're sitting. I love them so.

[Botany]

46. My mom used to have a crow that used to hang out in her back yard.

When she went outside he/she would caw 3 times. The crow would never "talk" to other people.
It would sometimes land on a table next to where she was sitting.

[trackfan]

58. We've put out nuts for the scrub jays for years.

There are bold ones who will take it out of your hand, and shy ones who'll wait till you turn away. The most surprising thing was what first happened about 15 years ago. There was a scrub jay that was quite bold, and would always come to our upstairs window sill for peanuts. If we were outside at our bar, he would come and land on the bar to get a nut. One day, we were at the bar, which is under a lemon tree, and heard a bird singing sweetly a very complex song. Now, to this point, the only sound I had ever heard from a scrub jay was the familiar loud squawk they make. When I heard this bird singing, it was very quiet, as if it was far away - I thought maybe it was a mockingbird in the next yard. Then I looked up in the lemon tree and saw our familiar scrub jay, and could see that it was he who was singing this song - and it was not much more than a whisper. I looked it up on the internet and found out about the "secret whisper song" of the scrub jay. After that he learned that if he came to the window and sang the whisper song, we would provide plenty of nuts. We still have scrub jays that come to the window for nuts, but it's been several years since any have sung the whisper song.

[First Speaker]

63. Too goddam intelligent, if you ask me...

...ever since I saw a documentary about them and their use of primitive tools, I've been deeply suspicious of our crow "friends". They're just waiting for us to terminally fuck things up, so they can take over. They aren't fooling me...

[lucca18]

24. I love this story! 💕 Thank you!

[Uncle Joe]

25. It would be wild if this turned out to be a key to a treasure chest or vault.

Thanks for the thread catbyte.

[Danmel]

28. Crows are freakishly smart

PBS Nature had a documentary called "A Murder of Crows," which btw is the group name for crows.
They remember people's faces and pass information on yo their young about people who have been kind (or not) to them.
They fashion tools and engage in multi step problem solving.
They are super bright.
Melinda will probably get gifts from multiple generations of crows.
https://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/a-murder-of-crows-introduction/5838/

[a kennedy]

29. I love stories like these......thank you for sharing.

[Bayard]

31. I've read several stories of people receiving gifts from crows

As thanks for being fed. Always nice to be appreciated!

[spooky3]

33. the norm of reciprocity goes beyond humans! This is a sweet story. nt

[StarryNite]

34. What a loving, lovely story.

[Silver Gaia]

36. Thank you for posting this lovely story!

[OxQQme]

37. Another instance

Many years ago, when Rachael Maddow was on AirAmerica radio, she described the difference between crows and ravens.
Identical but for size, crows being the smaller breed, -- if my memory hasn't gone up in smoke.

[sarge43]

45. There are differences.

Crows: About half the size of ravens. Smaller, sharper beaks. Sleek, smooth feathers. Shorter wing span relative to body size. Because they're very family originated, will form large flocks containing two or three generations, ie a clan. If you see one crow, there are other crows near by. Highly territorial as a few cats have found out. Crows teach battle tactics at Avian War College.

Ravens: Adults, at least three pounds in weight. Heavy curved beaks, often with a hook on the tip. Their feathers often look like they have a bad case of bed head. They will have a ruff under their lower beak. They have a quieter call than crows, "croak or tock-tock" instead of "CAW!". They are much stronger, long distant fliers than crows. They'll even ride thermals when available. They aren't as flock originated as crows; they tend to be more solitary. You will see three or four together, but seldom if ever a flock.

Both are scary smart.

[Karadeniz]

38. Hold on! Could it be that there's a moral to this story? Kindness promotes kindness?

Kindness conquers differences? Send to the white house!

[calimary]

47. Very cool!

[TlalocW]

48. If this were me

I would mention something about in a few years times I would have my all crow army, and how all the fools who laughed at me would soon pay dearly... just slightly under my breath to see if the interviewer caught it.

TlalocW

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

50. My mother and her sister had a pet crow when they were kids in the '30s.

His name was Henry. He didn't actually live in the house as a pet but he hung out with the humans and amused himself by untying the girls' hair ribbons.

[Yavin4]

51. Maybe she's the new Blood Raven.

The last green seer. The three-eyed crow.

[bobbieinok]

55. Crow shifters play a major role in Anne Bishops fantasy world set out in the series The Others

There are 5 or 6 books in the series now.

Several of the crows are major characters.

If you like fantasy/science fiction, you might try this series. Be sure to read the books in order.

[Gore1FL]

57. This is an interesting Ted Talk about crows and interaction with humans.

https://www.ted.com/talks/joshua_klein_on_the_intelligence_of_crows?language=en

[Judi Lynn]

59. Bless these beautiful critters. Thank you for this wonderful information. n/t

[trueblue2007]

62. my hubby feeds HIS crows.

[DeminPennswoods]

68. Rarely throw food scraps in the trash

anymore, just toss them off my back porch and my murder of crows does the rest. There must be a crow on "lookout" duty because as soon they see me throw out food, I hear a caw, caw, then the whole gang shows up for a snack. Btw, my dad called the birds "his", too.

[Skittles]

67. I would like them more if they weren't so freaking LOUD