DR. JO WIMPENNY: There is something about the way that

they look, the way that they move, and the way that I think

they look at you and they consider us as part of their

world as well, in a way that I think other birds maybe don't.

ROSIE HOLDSWORTH: Crows, Rooks and Jackdaws are all part of the

corvid family of birds. Known for their high intelligence,

you'll regularly find them gathering in large numbers,

circling overhead and cawing loudly.

I'm Ranger Rosie Holdsworth and in this episode fellow ranger

Ajay Tagala explores if Corvids really are as ominous as they're

portrayed in films and folklore or if there's more to these

super brainy birds than we think.

Welcome to Wild Tales and the story of the clever Corvids.

AJAY TEGALA: As a youngster, I was a bit wary of birds,

preferring to admire them from afar rather than being close to

their flapping wings, sharp claws and beaks. I think part of

this nervousness came after watching Alfred Hitchcock's

horror film The Birds.

I can still picture the scene when the Crows gather ominously

in large numbers.

But as I've grown older, I've developed quite an affection and

admiration for Corvids, and now I love seeing large groups of

them feeding together during the day or flying to roost as the

sun goes down. Globally, there are around 130 different species

of corvid, and in the UK we have eight. Carrion and hooded Crows,

rook, jackdaw, magpie, raven, chough and jay.

Corvids display complex social behaviour. And are often

associated with having good memories and the ability to

recognise others. So why then is it that they appear in folklore,

mythology, the horror genre and tales of death?

DR. JO WIMPENNY: I think their depiction as being these birds

that are always watching and observing the world, that

probably does feed into the slightly unsettling view that

some people have of Corvids, especially when they're in these

big flocks. They're making a lot of noise. If you're walking

around underneath, you can't help but feel like they are

watching you, which I can see might come across as being a

little bit sinister.

AJAY TEGALA: Dr Jo Wimpenny is a zoologist, writer and Corvid

enthusiast. Jo believes that as Corvid's are found almost

everywhere in the world, this has led to them being captured

in cultural traditions, religion and folklore.

DR. JO WIMPENNY: In a lot of sort of Western culture, but

especially in Europe and UK, we have this idea of Crows as being

bad omens. You know, if you see a corvid, then in some

particular folklore stories, that would be a sign of

impending tragedy. They've got this kind of association which

comes from the fact that they are carrion eaters.

AJAY TEGALA: Carrion is the dead and decaying flesh of an animal

that is often eaten by scavengers like Crows.

DR. JO WIMPENNY: In human history, when we go to war with

each other, there's often a lot of carrion and people would see

these birds circling the battlefields and I think come to

this assumption that they were they were ill omens, they were

associated with death. I think that's why in these kinds of

cultures that is the idea that we've developed about Crows.

AJAY TEGALA: But not everyone has a negative view of Corvids.

There are differences in how they're represented.

DR. JO WIMPENNY: There's also a lot of legend and mythology

which portrays the more positive attributes of Corvids. Their

intelligence. So in Norse mythology, it's the god Odin and

he's depicted as having two Ravens, which are his eyes and

ears, into the world of man.

And so that rests on the fact that Ravens were thought to be

quite intelligent birds. Going over to North America in some of

the First Nation tribes, raven was a really, really important

symbol, really, associated with creation, creation of the earth.

If we actually go to China and the Far East, then Crows were

depicted much more positively. They were associated with the

sun. There are tales of Crows being the ones that would

actually carry the sun over the sky. The legend and mythology

tends to fall into one of two camps.

It's either this association with death and malevolence, and

sort of darkness, or it's their association with intelligence

and being sort of guides, spiritual guides and navigators.

So it very much depends which aspect of corvid behaviour was

being woven into these stories.

AJAY TEGALA: So Corvids are brainy and considered some of

the smartest animals on the planet. They're great at problem

solving and even share many human traits. Not all of which

are good.

Nicky Clayton is Professor of Comparative Cognition at the

University Of Cambridge and studies Corvid intelligence.

PROFESSOR NICKY CLAYTON: I've been interested in how they

think.

And so I've been looking at some of their natural behaviours, for

example, their propensity to hide food, we call it caching,

and what that reveals about their cognitive capacities. So,

for example, they're able to remember where they've hidden

food, but not just the spatial location. Whether the food is

likely to have perished or not, so they keep track of time.

They're also highly social, and they're really good at keeping

track of who's watching and when, and knowing who might

steal their caches. Because that's the thing about these

birds, they don't only hide their own food, they also steal

other birds' caches.

So they're constantly switching roles, one minute being the

protector, of their own prizes and the next minute being the

potential thief. What the birds do is that if other birds are

watching when they hide their food, they wait till the others

have gone and they move them to new hiding places. But they'd

only do it if they were watched and watched by a potential

thief.

If it's their mate watching, they don't bother to move it to

new places. And if they're on their own, they don't do it. But

perhaps most remarkably, They only do it if they themselves

have had experience of being a thief. So naive birds who

haven't stolen anybody else's caches don't do it. It's

literally, it takes a thief to know a thief.

So that's pretty smart because it's thinking about other minds,

other individuals, but also other times because the only

purpose of doing that is with the future in mind. And, you

know, it's said that most animals can't think about the

future, but that's not true of Crows. They're really good at

thinking about the future.

AJAY TEGALA: As they're often large, dark-feathered birds, it

can be difficult to tell Corvids apart, particularly when they're

flying. So how do we identify them? Dr Jo Wimpenny again.

DR. JO WIMPENNY: Within the corvid family, one group of the

birds are, you know, the typical sort of black crow-looking birds

and they're the members of the corvus genus. So again in the UK

that would be your raven and the crows, the rook and the jackdaw.

So Rooks' striking feature is having this bald patch at the

base of their beak so it looks like they've got sort of a pale

grey face and they tend to have a bit of a purplish sheen to

their feathers. And then magpies and jays, they look a little bit

different and magpies of course have that striking black and

white colouration and the glossy feathers and the long tail.

Eurasian jays are a bit of an outlier being beautifully

coloured chestnut plumage with that lovely blue colour on the

feathers and then there are some Crows or some members of the

corvid family more exotic places which are really visually quite

spectacular you know there's a green crow and there are others

that are different colours.

AJAY TEGALA: It's not just variation in their colours.

Corvids also differ in other aspects of their lives too.

DR. JO WIMPENNY: Carrion Crows, they will live in these pairs,

they breed, but really they're thought of as a bit more

solitary. Whereas the Rooks, they live in these big colonies

over winter and then of course in breeding time as well they'll

be nesting together.

AJAY TEGALA: When you're in the countryside, you'd expect to see

Corvids in fields, perched on wires or nestled amongst tree

branches. But what about in our towns and cities?

DR. JO WIMPENNY: If you're living in towns, then, for

example, magpies are extremely well adapted to be living in

urban environments. And Jackdaws, they also do well in

towns and cities because they nest in cavities, and so they

can find an abundance of potential nesting sites in

buildings and sort of chimneys and things like that. So, yeah,

Jackdaws have done quite well out of urbanisation as well.

AJAY TEGALA: With Ravens living in mountains and coastal

regions, and choughs also found in coastal habitats, there's

certainly diversity in where Corvids live. But are the

different species friendly towards each other?

DR. JO WIMPENNY: Rooks and Jackdaws, they will hang out

together. They form these huge kind of communal roosting sites

up in the trees. Some places, you know, they're really, really

huge. They can be sort of tens of thousands of birds strong in

certain areas.

Probably hundreds is more typical. And Rooks actually tend

to also come back to the same nest site in those rookeries. So

rookeries can last for many years because they're constantly

in use.

AJAY TEGALA: So why do some Corvids congregate in big

groups?

DR. JO WIMPENNY: There are lots of hypotheses for why Corvids

firstly will hang out in these big groups, why they nest

together and why they roost together. And some of the main

ideas would be that it's a safety measure, you know, you're

kind of better off in a group than you are on your own in

terms of avoiding being predated.

But there's also an idea that these Social groups function as

a kind of information centre. They're certainly calling in

order to be communicating with each other.

AJAY TEGALA: Corvid calls are easy to hear. So when they're

cawing, what is it they're communicating to each other?

Professor Nicky Clayton again.

PROFESSOR NICKY CLAYTON: The interesting thing about Corvids,

I think, is that their calls are very raucous and loud. And

they're obviously communicating things like, go away.

Keep out this is mine don't bother me right now they're the

public signals but their songs are very quiet so I think their

songs are entirely for sort of pillow talk purposes with their

mates. Their vocalization is very complex we don't know a lot

about them but we do know that they like all other songbirds

they learn their songs and they've great vocal mimics so

there's lots of complexity around their vocal

communication.

AJAY TEGALA: But if there's one thing that you should know about

Corvids, it's that you should never cross them. If you bother

them, they'll remember you and will even hold grudges.

PROFESSOR NICKY CLAYTON: John Marzluff, a professor in the

United States, has shown that his North American Crows are

brilliant at recognising faces, irrespective of, you know, the

clothes people are wearing and all that stuff. And the ones

that have been mean to them, they bear a grudge. But equally,

it's not all negative.

Ones that have been kind to them, they give gifts to them.

And the Crows on Parker's Piece in Cambridge bring me gifts. I

always get, like, bottle tops, walnuts, olives, wine corks. I

always get nice presents. Like us, they can be kind and they

can have their off days as well.

AJAY TEGALA: Corvid's in the wild can live between 7 and 15

years, with some known to survive for around 20 years. As

adults, mated corvid pairs typically stay together for

life. They make great parents, have tight family bonds and are

devoted to their chicks.

DR. JO WIMPENNY: Baby crows, they absolutely rely on their

parents in those early days. The mum will stay with them, look

after them. Dad will go out and forage for food and bring that

back to the nest. But they're both caring for the chicks until

they reach independence.

And when they do get to that point, they don't just leave.

They hang around for a bit. After they fledge, once they've

left their parents' territory, they find these groups of other

kind of teenage birds that they will then hang out with.

Possibly that's for protection, for information sharing, but

also so that they can find a mate.

And the males will do these courtship displays to females.

Males will feed females. If she's receptive, she will kind

of crouch down and open her beak and the male will pop the food

in and they make very cute little noises when they're doing

that.

Ravens as well will do these courtship flights and they can

be quite incredible because the male, you know, will kind of do

these sort of rolling displays in flight, sometimes even upside

down, so that they do sort of go out to try and impress the

females and then they will pair up and stay together.

I love watching Crows. I love seeing their little interactions

with each other, which are often so hidden from the rest of the

world. They're really subtle. Once you start tuning in to what

Crows are doing, you see that they live in a world which is

much richer.

They show affection, they show intelligence, they play, they're

loyal to each other and I think it's time to stop seeing them as

these omens of bad news and just associating them with death and

the negative things and to view them in this much more positive

light.

ROSIE HOLDSWORTH: Thanks for listening to this episode of

Wild Tales. To hear more episodes, follow us on your

favourite podcast app. We'll be back soon with more inspiring

stories from the world of nature. And in the meantime, you

can also follow us on Instagram, at wildtalesnt.

Until next time, goodbye.