Corvids are a family of birds that are bold and brainy. Some even consider them beautiful. They seem to be more and more ubiquitous (though this may have something to do with aging).
I have been intrigued by those black creatures since I was 10 and found a crow hopping about in a mangled field where a vast orange grove once stood. Its left wing had been all but shot off. I captured it in my jacket and took it home where we had an old pigeon cage. 50 years later I wrote a poem about it, titled “Broken Wing.” The entire poem is published in the book “Kindling.” The last four lines are these:
The crow rested there in agony for two months.
I tried to feed it dog food and bread.
It’s black pearled eye glared back, indifferently,
A million years of contempt.
Literary and spiritual references to corvids, particularly ravens (the biggest and probably smartest) are vast. While in most eastern cultures ravens symbolize loss, death and ill omens, in Christianity ravens symbolize survival, and in England luck (which is why one is always kept in the tower of London to avoid disaster). Some Africans wear ravens as good luck charms, and in Japan young ravens symbolize intelligence. Of course for most Native American tribes the raven represents spiritual transformation as well as being a trickster.
Just how intelligent are ravens and crows? Here are a few facts. The weight ratio of their brains to their bodies is comparable to dolphins and great apes. They can make their own tools and can recreate designs by using multiple items (otherwise non-functional) into a particular tool. They hold funerals for their dead (why they gather to do this is poorly understood). These corvids can also recognize human faces, play sports, know traffic rules, have various dialects, solve puzzles and mate for life. They can plan ahead and barter. As far as problem solving one can view videos on YouTube of them performing complicated tasks that would challenge a 7 year old human. Here is a good one titled: “Smartest Bird (the intelligent raven solves a puzzle).”
https:://youtu.be/WYBATylLJD8
A decade ago I was visiting Yosemite Valley and asked a park ranger where were all the raccoons that were the top foragers there. He said that ravens had replaced them.
About that time I began to notice what appeared to be more and more ravens in rural areas that were edging into towns and cities where their close cousins, crows, commonly ruled the roost. Now I see ravens quite often on my early morning walks around Colfax, often at the ballpark. Do they recognize me? They undoubtedly would if I brought them a little food everyday (and in return they would leave me shiny trinkets)… this does occur.
Once I sat on a log at Muir Beach and watched five ravens watch me eating an apple. I placed the apple core about 12 feet from my seat and waited. They slowly closed in quite aware that I was very close by. After a few minutes a big, bold bird hopped up, grabbed the apple core and took off like a shot in flight down the beach. His flock (jealous groupies?) burst into flight in a mad, raucous scramble and all disappeared around the point to the south. I still wonder what that crazy display was all about. Yet another mystery to add to my raven collection.
As Edgar Allan Poe wrote:
Leave my loneliness unbroken!—quit the bust above my door!
Take thy beak from out my heart and take thy form off my door
Love those birds... jays, too!