What do crows, elephants and dolphins have in common ?

[Wade]

Is this video of a dolphin funeral procession? - LA Observed

 

[Polterwurst]

Nice find, thank you. I heard magpies seem to have something akin to funeral rites, too. A scientist here in gemany says he's watched a group of them gathering around a dead member, carrying twigs and leaves in their beaks and then proceeding to cover the body with them. But I guess, they are part of the crow family or something.

 

[williamjwhite]

Oh this is crazy, just last week a large crow turned up in my backyard, it was on its back, and convulsing. Moments later, about a couple dozen more were circling the backyard, and cawing very loudly. It really seemed creepy at the time. The one on the ground died, the others eventually left too, but I'd never seen anything like it before. And, now I notice them out there every morning.

 

[Wade]

when I was growing up back east I was walking home from playing at some friends, it was late summer and near dusk I came across a gathering ....i guess I should say a murder...of crows. I could hear them long before i saw them and looking up I could see scores of them still arriving I thought that every crow on the county had shown up. Obviously I detoured from my route to see what the commotion was about. The event lasted about 15-20 minutes and if the arrival was deafening so was the silence that soon followed, and though it was probably a coincidence with God as my witness the procession ended just as the sun was slipping below the horizon. And with a single call from within that black mass the crows left in unison. it made one of those starlings massings you see look tame by comparison.

 

[williamjwhite]

I wasn't aware that this was some sort of common phenomenon, I'd never seen it before, but that's comforting to know. But, man that was strange to watch!

 

[pixelsmith]

Crows are quite amazing. I am very involved with the crow "situation" in my city and I have seen similar events. They do in fact observe the death of another crow just as spookymulder indicated. They leave at sundown to roost together in large numbers for safety, and socialization. They mate for life and have a very complex social structure. They take safety seriously and always have a lookout posted. If the lookout leaves its post it has been observed that they sometimes gang up and kill the lookout. The can be trained to talk but it is an old wives tale that you have to split the tongue.

 

[Wade]

I guess we shouldn't be all that taken aback by such behavior, it's pretty arrogant to think that us humans are the only species capable of showing sorrow and chalking such displays as up to anthropomorphism. Still I'm not aware of that many species showing such emotions collectively. gorillas are also in that group.

Here's an interesting article

Deep Sorrow | The Vineyard Gazette - Martha's Vineyard News

it touches on an interesting point. if one were going to attribute such behavior to animal instincts is it wrong to put humans in that same category ? we may be just a little more elaborate.

 

[pixelsmith]

not at all spookymulder, humans are mammals, therefore IMO we are animals.

 

[Polterwurst]

if one were going to attribute such behavior to animal instincts is it wrong to put humans in that same category ? we may be just a little more elaborate.

I like to think it might be the other way round. Like the smaller pieces of a hologram still contain the whole image, just less clearly, animals might share what we call consciousness, just less clearly. And that could be what "allows" them to feel (I guess that much can be said without anthropomorphising, that at least some animals show signs of emotions). That doesn't mean that we have to be the ultimate expression of consciousness, though.

Reading over my last post about magpies, I just thought of a magpie experience I had - or rather my cat Lucky had - that seemed right out of Hitchcock's The Birds. I was taking a walk along some fields behind our house, and as my cat sometimes seems to think he's a dog, he's following me at some distance, say, 100 metres. All of a sudden, five magpies take off from a nearby tree, circle for a bit and then, three of them touch down right in front of the cat. I'm thinking one of them's gonna become cat lunch, but instead I'm quite baffled to see that my cat obviously turns to run for safety. That same moment, the remaining two magpies land right in his way, quite obviously to cut him off. Looked absolutely planned or pre-meditated. They now surrounded and faced him and although their behaviour seemed casual, to me there was a distinct feel of willfulness. They definitely were up to no good.

And obviously, that wasn't the first time my cat had been harrassed by that "magpie gang", because instead of attacking one of them or trying to make it through the "enemy lines", he immediately cowers down, body as flat as possible, forepaws shielding his head. And he's not at all a small and vulnerable kitten. Wish I'd had a cellphone camera, it still totally baffles me. At least, that explained some of the scars I'd found on him earlier, which looked a lot like beak marks. And so I had to come to his rescue. The birds reluctantly took off when I approached.

 

[williamjwhite]

I've been reading up more on this stuff today. I've always been an animal lover, I have three cats, and a dog. Our backyard seems to be a magnet for crows and foxes. Well, less foxes since we've gotten our dog Raven (how ironic), but I think I find this behavior in crows fascinating, and I'll probably find myself doing more bird-watching now (actually I already am).

 

[pixelsmith]

Starlings are quite remarkable as well.

 

[mike]

We have two colonys of Cockatoos here a black and white ones

The white ones have a lookout posted at our place, and when the chickens get fed, they let the rest of the colony know.

Some time last year, they were digging up the lawn roots for food, and sadly one of them got taken by one of our dogs.
The troop clustered in the trees on our block and screamed for hours, and avoided the place for about a week.

I have one who only has one eye who comes to me for hand feeding, and even lets me touch him, though hes clearly nervous about that.

But this lot clearly new one of theirs was killed and had a very strong reaction to the event, the noise was horrendus and heartbreaking