A study has come out of the University of Washington which pretty clearly proves that crows recognize individual human faces, and also remember whether the face is friend or foe.
This may be startling to those of you who think of crows as "tree rats," but I've known for two decades about the smarts of the big black birds.
In 1987 I was dating a girl who worked at an animal lab at U Dub. I would wait for her on the roof of one of the department's buildings while she tortured monkeys or whatever they did downstairs. I liked the girl, if not her job, and was in an employment "don't ask, don't tell" mode.
Anyway, up on the roof they had a semi-open cage full of crows. These captives were often visited by freer crow cousins. I watched those birds for hours, crooning, cawing and obviously communicating like crazy with one another.
Eventually, being a curious cat, I sat right by the cage. A big prisoner hopped over and seemed to be talking to me, so I talked back. In a while, the crow began keening and moving in what looked, to this literature major, like a dance.
The girlfriend, seeing the crow's response, went back inside and got a professor. "I think it's a mating dance, or something," the prof opined. "Crows are very smart. Watch them and you can see it," she added.
Years later, in Kitsap County, I watched crows team up to drive bald eagles away from their nesting chicks. I watched them hunt small rodents in what looked like formation. And I watched them talk to one another while sitting on trees above the bay where I lived in Port Orchard.
I'm long sold on crows, but it was still nice to see scientific confirmation of my favorite birds' smarts. I clipped the articles for proof in future arguments with dummies who like swans just because they have necks like an East European rhythmic gymnast. Pretty, maybe, but not a patch on a smart-assed crow.
A FEMALE READER of this column e-mailed to seek my opinion on the fact that the major television networks, ABC, CBS and NBC, were showing only one hour a night of the Democratic Convention.
"It fits in to everything you've been saying about the dumbing down of Americans," she wrote. She also suggested that it might be a network conspiracy against Barack Obama and the more liberal Democrats.
She'd put me in perfect position for some real self-righteous, self-congratulatory pundit b.s., but I had to tell her I was pleased about the Reader's Digest condensed version of the conventions. Nothing is
more boring than watching politicians hug and kiss one another
and confirm their own brilliances in a flood of agreement. I can only hope and pray the Republicans are meted out the same 60 minutes per night. One more would be a crime against the already suffering American people.
If this makes me a dumbed-down citizen, so be it. I don't want to hear 24 hours of blathering from Denver about a new day dawning, and I certainly don't want to hear an equal amount of hoohah from the Twin Cities about John McCain being a maverick. No admiral's son with seven (or is it nine?) houses is rebelling against anything but poverty.
FINALLY, from the state that brought us George W. Bush, comes the news that in tiny Harrold, Texas, community "leaders" have armed some of their schoolteachers. This was done without putting the matter to a vote of the parents. School officials are not releasing the names or the percentage of the faculty who are armed, the better to keep purported hostage-takers and late-arriving students guessing.
"What happened to Bobby, Mrs. Wilken?"
"He got up to open a window in biology class without asking permission, and Mr. Zepf shot him in the ass, Darlene. But that's what the boy gets. A good American obeys authority, and if he don't ... well. Controllin' mavericks is what democracy is all about."
"Is he gonna be all right?"
"They're re-educating him
somewhere in Cuba, but the
principal says ultimately he'll be fine."
There are 110 students in the Harrold school, and my guess is most of them will be saying their Pledge of Allegiance loud and proud. They better.
E-mail columnist Dennis Wilken
c/o qamagnews@nwlink.com
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