Nickyitis – An Epidemic of Humorous Proportions

Anyone who’s spent time around animals knows very, very well that they exhibit all the mental "stuff" that people once felt was their exclusive domain. And I CERTAINLY don’t need to be told that crows are the coolest of the cool.

  HERE  we’re shown a crow demonstrating a level of intelligence that’s pretty amazing (I don’t think half of my neighbors would figure this one out). Corvids (a group of birds that includes crows, ravens, and jays) are remarkable animals, with complex social structures and equally complex behaviors. I mean, come on, when japanese crows learn that cars won’t hit them if they’re in the cross walk when the light shows "walk" AND put that together with the observation that cars will run over (and therefore open) the nuts they drop during the "don’t walk" phase, well, you’ve got to realize there’s something pretty high level going on in their minds. And for those of you who’d like to read more about this, allow me to offer a recommendation.

Ravens in Winter, by Bernd Heinrich, is a fascinating read for those who’d like to get some sense of what goes on in raven life and also of what old Bernd had to suffer through to figure it all out. Roughing it doesn’t half describe it.

You know, it’s unlikely that the native Americans along the Pacific Coast would have put Raven up on as high a pedestal as they did if there wasn’t any mental firepower there. Seriously, the time to drop the phrase "what a birdbrain" is well past, unless it’s taken to mean "now that’s a sharp guy."

- And that’s today’s word from the bird