Bird Brains

Do we have crows or ravens in Santa Barbara? The short answer is: both. The flocks of black birds you see flying around town, though, are always American crows. In our county, ravens rarely form large flocks and are more often seen singly or in pairs. Ravens are more birds of the wild, of the mountains. Ravens are considerably bigger than crows, weighing in at more than twice as much. The raven has a deep, gruff voice while the crow’s calls are much higher in pitch. If you get a close look at a raven, you’ll see that its beak is enormous, a formidable weapon. They are both fascinating birds with a wealth of folklore behind them, and they are some of the smartest creatures on the planet.

A few years ago I watched an American crow flying over my house carrying a walnut. It dropped the nut, and I assumed it was aiming for a hard surface on which to break the shell. But before the walnut reached the ground, the crow folded its wings, and in an elegant swoop and with incredible coordination, caught the prize in its bill. I assumed the bird had thought better about where the nut was going to fall, but much to my surprise, the crow circled around and repeated the procedure, dropping the walnut from a considerable height, and successfully diving after it. It repeated this feat twice more, before two other crows took an interest in the performance and chased off the acrobat.

What was going on? Whatever it was doing it certainly looked a lot of fun. And then I realized that was it — the bird must have been feeling a sense of exhilaration in its mastery of the air. I think crows know how to have fun. I’m often asked why crows will chase hawks, and I used to answer something along the lines that they want to get a dangerous bird out of their territory. There might be something to that, of course, but after watching crows spend up to ten minutes dive bombing a circling red-tailed hawk, I think a likelier explanation is that they do it because they can and it’s enjoyable, like a bunch of smart kids singling out a bully for some special treatment.