Most people don’t realize just how smart crows are in scientific studies crows used logic to solve puzzles and in one study a crow was given a particularly challenging puzzle that required the understanding of analogies to solve it and on this crow’s first attempt it immediately recognized the pattern and solve the puzzle within seconds in the wild crows will fashion their own tools like a hook made from a bent twig that they’ll use to help forage food more efficiently. Crows will also host these huge funerals for their fallen comrades but the most fascinating aspect of a crow’s intelligence is how they employ it against us the same way we study crows, crows study people they watch our behavior to look for patterns to help them determine if an individual is a friend or a foe once a determination is made that crow doesn’t forget and they pass it off to their friends and their family who will immediately put this information to use even if they’ve never had a first-hand experience with the person in question for the people who are determined to be the worst foes like people who have tried to do harm to the crows the crows have been known to stake out that person’s house and every time they come outside they will swoop down violently trying to hit them and they’ll caught them the whole time and this behavior can go on for years on the other end of the spectrum the people who are determined to be the best friends of the crows get a very different treatment one that seems like it’s straight out of a fairy tale in 2011 four-year-old gabby mann was living in seattle washington with her family one day when she was getting out of the family car she dropped a chicken nugget onto the ground and before she could pick it up a neighborhood crow swooped down and took the free lunch a few days later when gabby was on her back deck having some food she dropped a piece of bread on the ground and just like the last time a crow came flying in and took it before gabby could do anything and because gabby was a messy eater she continued to drop food everywhere she went and so she continued to inadvertently feed these crows eventually every time gabby went outside a murder of crows would assemble in front of her house so a big gaggle of crows and they would just follow her around everywhere she went as gabby got older she grew to really enjoy the attention from all these birds and so she started feeding them huge portions of her lunch before she hopped on the bus to go to school when she got back in the afternoon and hopped off the bus there would be this murder of crows sitting on the power line waiting for gabby when gabby’s mother discovered where most of her daughter’s food was going she wasn’t upset she was just worried her daughter wasn’t getting enough to eat and so she told her daughter to stop giving away her lunch and instead they would go out and buy some food just for the crows and so starting in 2013 when gabby was seven she and her mom began feeding the crows every day each morning they would go out into their backyard and they would refill the bird bath with fresh water and then they would put peanuts into the cupboard feeder and scatter dog food in the backyard and the crows loved it a few weeks into this new feeding ritual gabby went outside one morning to refill the peanut tray when she noticed something was already on the peanut tray there was a small earring she brought it inside and she showed it to her mom and her mom said she hadn’t put it there and so gabby was convinced the crows had left her a gift her mom wasn’t sure but over the following few weeks when more and more little trinkets like a marble and a polished stone and a screw and a metal hinge when those started showing up in the peanut tray and in the bird bath gabby’s mom actually went out and installed a camera to look out into the backyard to see if it was really true that the crows were the ones leaving these things behind and after reviewing the footage she was amazed to see that .Yes, the crows would come in and they would eat their food they would drink their water and clean themselves and then they would leave behind these shiny little trinkets as if it was their way of saying thank you for the food gabby was over the moon for these little gifts she began collecting all of them and putting them in a jewelry box and labeling them of when she got them and how important they were to her ranking them from most favorite to least favorite her favorite being this little piece of metal that said best on it and she jokes that the crows have the other half that says friends but the crow’s most astonishing gift came the following year in 2014. gabby’s mother was an avid photographer and one day she was out by herself photographing a bald eagle that had come into town and while she was taking these shots she managed to drop a lens cover to one of her cameras and she heard it hit the ground but she was so busy taking photos that she told herself she would pick it up before she left but after getting totally wrapped up in this photo shoot she forgot about the lens cap on the ground and wound up going home without it that night when she got back to her house she happened to go out onto her back deck as the sun was setting and she thought she noticed something in their bird bath and upon closer inspection she couldn’t believe what was sitting there she ran back inside and opened up her laptop and pulled up the footage from the bird camera she had set up and there it was a crow coming into the yard before she had even returned from this bald eagle photography session this crow was in the backyard with the lens cap in its mouth and it went into the bird bath and it very carefully washed the cap in the water and then it placed it very delicately on the side of the bird bath and checked it a couple times to make sure it was steady and then it flew off this behavior is very significant because it means the relationship between the crows and gabby and her mom was not a transactional one they were not just simply leaving behind these trinkets as a way of paying for the food they were doing it because they had grown attached to gabby and her mom so when gabby’s mom was out in town taking photos of this bald eagle at least one crow had just gone with her and when this crow saw her drop the lens cap it snapped into action swooped down picked it up and returned it to the house because that’s what best friends do today gabby and her mother still feed the crows every single day and the crows still love gabby and her mother.
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