Crows. They are one of the most common birds found in North America and are easily identified by their large body shape, and dark black coloration. The top five animal phobias in order are: spiders, snakes, wasps, bees, and sharks. One animal however, is far scarier than the rest, and yet is somehow missing from this list. Crows.
Crows are scary for a plethora of different reasons but perhaps the most frightening is, they can remember your face. A study done by researchers in Seattle involved capturing and tagging crows while wearing masks resembling a human face. They would then return to the park where the crows were captured to see if the crows could recognize human faces. To be brief they can. The crows would wait and dive-bomb the men wearing masks. The crows would attack the man wearing the mask, regardless of his size meaning they recognized the face, not the size of the man. Soon enough even crows that weren’t captured were attacking the men, but it wasn’t just all men in masks. The crows would dive-bomb the masks worn when they were captured while not giving so much as a glance to masks that were not present during the capture. Crows it turns out have a crazily complex method of communication, and their squawking even has a regional dialect. They are able to warn others what threats look like, and are able to organize multiple crows to carry out attacks. Remember that one time you ran into a group of crows thinking it was hilarious to watch them “caw” and fly off. Well they do, and right now they’re laying low and forming a strike team to take you out.
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Don’t believe me? In Chatham, Ontario, Canada they had a huge crow problem. 600,000 crows decided it was a lovely area, and the large number of farms present provided the perfect food supply. After almost a whole year’s worth of crops were ruined in a few days time, the mayor of the town decided he could only do one thing, declare open season on all crows, and the next morning a whole band of farmers formed to go out and kill as many crows as possible. According to the mayor if everything went well they would kill 300,000 birds over the next week or so. The next day the farmers went out decked in hunting gear and came away with one bird. One out of 600,000 crows were killed, or .00016667percent of all crows living in the town. All 600,000 crows heard about the one crow slain and evacuated the town. Every year the crows still migrate through the town, but fly just high enough to avoid any gunfire. Crows have been known to completely alter migration routes even generations later to avoid houses that even one crow has been killed at. Just think that if you’ve ever killed a crow, they’re currently passing stories down to their children about your house, and the horrors that await them should they land there.
Have you ever seen a crow with a knife? Then thankfully you’ve never encountered a New Caledonian Crow. One of these crows named Betty was placed in front of a tube with a basket full of food inside of it with a handle. The only other thing in the room was a straight piece of wire. On her first time ever faced with this challenge, Betty bent the piece of wire into a hook and retrieved the basket on her first try. These same Crows have been strapped with small cameras and have been recorded not only using sticks and blades of grass to retrieve bugs, but also using these sticks and blades of grass to create knives, which could then be used to create more tools. That’s right, now when the crows eventually decided to take over the world they won’t even have to try and claw your eyes out, they’ll just come at you with the many weapons developed by their booming manufacturing industry.
The final reason you should be scared of crows is because they are incredibly adaptive. Crows have learned that the easiest way to crack open hard nuts is to drop them in front of cars and let them crack the shell for them. To make this process easier, they have memorized the traffic pattern and know when the light will turn green and drop the nut at the proper time in the proper direction. Then after the shell is cracked, they are known to wait until the light is red to swoop down and retrieve the nut. Being able to tell that something bad could happen if they don’t wait for a red light is something less than 5% of New Yorkers have mastered.
Long story short, you should be very, very nice to crows because their intelligence far surpasses that of your own. Not only are they extremely quick and efficient thinkers, they will remember you and your house for generations to come. They hold grudges and refuse to even acknowledge that such a thing as mercy exists. Next time you hear a crow on your roof, lock the doors, draw the shades, and hide under your bed until you are 100% sure it has left. You never know when your actions will rub the crow the wrong way and punch your ticket into murderous crow lore.