Crows are smart birds

A few months ago, I wrote about an article published in Scientific American discussing work focused on determining how smart ravens are. That study showed empirical evidence supporting the hypothesis that ravens are capable of constructing complex plans using logic. Crows and ravens belong in the same family of birds but the two differ in some basic ways, but both excel in their problem solving abilities. Crows are very smart birds not necessarily outdone by ravens. Recently, I came across a video on YouTube that clearly demonstrates their smarts. The video is about crows living in Japan having adapted to an urban environment. They have developed some very advanced foraging skills; the bird shown in the video below demonstrates a complex method crows use for cracking nuts taking advantage of car traffic. If you watch the video until the end, you will be amazed by how the crows have perfected their behavior to retrieve the food from the cracked nut safely without getting hit by the cars.

Below is another video showing a crow's problem solving abilities. In this case, the bird uses a tool, i.e., length of wire, to retrieve a piece of food that it cannot reach with its beak. Interestingly, the crow knows how to bend the wire in order to create a hook making it possible to grab the food and take it out of its container. Remarkable! I only wish that we had robots that can exhibit the same kind of intelligent behavior.