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Crow Portrait

Pied crows look a bit similar to Eurasian magpies, considered the most (!) intelligent birds on the planet. Pied crows are very intelligent too. Here is an interesting story published at blogs.thatpetplace.com/thatbirdblog/2013/05/06/crows-as-p... :

 

“I live in a country where these amazing birds are indigenous. We found Mort as a 3-week-old baby who we presume had fallen out of his nest. We couldn’t find a nest in any of the large trees nearby, so we took him home. We discussed outside aviaries for when he was older, and by the time we had decided on where to put it, Mort had taken to roosting on the top of our bedroom door at night …. and the rest is history.

 

He doesn’t have an aviary, has free range of the house and garden, and despite how scary that sounds, it actually works. We have a very large house and garden. When we go to bed at night, we find bundles of sticks, stones, etc that he is squirreled away. I think he sort of sees our bed as his nest, as he will patrol up and down it, and not even let my kids on it sometimes. I spent a lot of time with him when he was still a baby, keeping him in my shirt and taking and singing to him, so he has imprinted on me completely.

 

What is interesting is how the wild pieds interact with him, we have thousands flying around here. Mort will parade around on the verandah, cawing and immediately there will be a few wild pieds who are interested. They come and sit in the big trees in front of Mort or right onto the roof and look at him and Mort clacks his beak at them. He then starts to show off, and actually brings some of his toys outside and nonchalantly plays with them. The wild crows come closer and closer, until our dogs come out and they move off.

 

He is, without doubt, the most intelligent animal I have ever seen. Surprisingly, he is great friends with our cats and they often all hang out together.”

 

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Uploaded on February 18, 2015
Taken on February 15, 2015