Intelligent Crows

“And it will be that you shall drink from the brook, and I have commanded the ravens to feed you there.” [1.Kings 17:4]

We don’t usually think of birds as being smart creatures. After all, that’s where we get the expression “bird brain.” But crows and ravens, both from the Corvidae family, are an exception. Researchers believe their clever, fun-loving, and witty behavior ranks crows and ravens with the intelligence of dogs and even chimps. Found just about everywhere in the world except South America, crows and ravens adapt well to almost any environment. Their omnivorous diet helps them thrive in cities and suburban areas in close association with humans.

Crows demonstrate a sophisticated social behavior, playing tricks on each other and fabricating tools to get food. One crow was videotaped using leverage to bend a straight piece of wire into a hook. He then used the hook to fish a bucket of food from a deep tube. No other animal – not even a chimp – has ever spontaneously solved a problem like this. Crows have a highly developed system of communication that is passed on from one generation to another. Different clans of crows seem to speak with different dialects. Just like parrots, they can mimic the sounds of other animals and even the human voice. Crows can even be trained to “speak.”

The world’s oldest crow, named Tata, died in July 2006. As a fledgling, Tata was blown from her nest in a Long Island cemetery during a fierce thunderstorm. The baby crow with a broken wing was adopted by a local family. That was back in 1947. Tata never did learn to fly, but that might be one reason she lived 59 years. Ravens are 30 percent bigger than crows and also have among the largest brains of any bird. They typically live about 15 years in the wild, although life spans of up to 40 years have been recorded.

Did you know the Bible talks about ravens? The first bird ever mentioned in the Bible was a raven. The Bible says of Noah after the flood, “Then he sent out a raven, which kept going to and fro until the waters had dried up from the earth” (Genesis 8:7). And Jesus told us we could learn from this wise bird: “Consider the ravens, for they neither sow nor reap, which have neither storehouse nor barn; and God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds?” (Luke 12:24).