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Brainy Black Crows Bemoan Brethren

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Dhani Toney-Sullivan

Marylhurst University

INT301- Methods of Interdisciplinary Inquiry

Professor Fred Isaacs

Final Draft


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The loss of a loved one can be equated to psychological amputation. Grief is a natural

response to bereavement. Behaviors that are experienced through mourning and rituals, though

varied; they serve a common purpose: to heal the pain of loss. Grief rituals are exercises that

provide guidance through tradition, societal norms, cultural practices and some religious praxes

that can bring relief and closure to the woeful. Rituals help us to observe transition from a place

of loss, pain, sorrow and despair, to a more hopeful and healthy place of healing from which to

move on. Humans are not exclusive to the observation of grieving rituals; ceremonies

surrounding the grieving process are evident globally and are present in many living creatures

great and small. Crows are no exception, in fact, they are exceptional. According to Alina

Bradford of Live Science, crows belong to the family of Corvids or Corvidae which are stout-

billed passerine birds including jays, magpies, and the raven. There are approximately forty

types of crows. The American Crow is all black, but other types of crows such as the Pied,

Piping and Hooded crows are black and white. White albino crows, although rare, have also been

recognized throughout the world. (Bradford, 2015)

My interdisciplinary studies have been focused in communication and psychology with a

special interest in neurobiology and interpersonal neurobiology and how it applies to

psychology. Additionally I have a minor concentration in the field of fine art. I have completed

an original artwork to illustrate the story of the crow funeral ritual in my presentation for this

paper. (Please see final page.) As I studied crows through the lens of psychology, I found that

corvid are particularly well known for their cognitive ability and emotional behaviors. Within the

findings of their interpersonal neurobiology lie the explanation for the bonds we see within the

crow community. Investigating the Corvidae communication style and aptitude has been quite


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fascinating, as they are known to be cooperative within their communities and are adept at

teamwork and having complex social lifestyles.

Crow Funeral

I became interested in the grieving behaviors of corvids after witnessing a large murder of

troubled and strident crows atop a giant cedar in my front yard last spring. I had been visiting

with a friend in my living room when we heard the caws outside growing louder and louder until

the cacophony was too raucous to ignore. After five minutes of this deafening noise, we went

outside to see what the ruckus was about. As we opened the garden gate, I noticed that the

reverberation had begun to intrigue the neighbors as well, as they were filing into the front yard

to examine the treetops. There must have been forty to fifty black crows screeching at the tip top

of the tallest cedar in the front left corner of my property. I went around to the street side to get a

better look up that particular tree. I stood at the base of the enormous trunk and looked upward

through the branches. I discovered one of their deceased kin as it fell from the tree, softly

grazing my face as the tip of its wing gently met the tip of my nose; and it fell to the earth at my

feet from the branches above. Their fervent cries ceased the moment the bird hit the ground. It

made me wonder: do crows hold funerals for their deceased?

(Savage, 1995) writes that, “Ceremonial gatherings following the death of a mated bird have

been reported for a number of species of corvids. For example; if a magpie loses its partner early

in the breeding season, the event is marked within twenty-four hours by a noisy gathering of

visitors” (p.79). It is her belief that this loud display ritual is a calling to let other birds know

there is a vacancy in the nest, if it is a female who loses her mate; whereas a male is able to stay


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in the nest and attract a new mate in the commotion. The call of the ceremonial assembly is

specialized and is sung in unison within the tribe as they mourn.

In the book Gifts of the Crow, there are several stories shared by witnesses of these crow

“funerals”. In one accounting:

“Kat Shaffer was drawn to the window of her Dayton, Ohio home by an early

evening ruckus of crows. The birds cawed wildly as they took flight before

settling in a large tree where they looked down upon a dead crow. After twenty

minutes, the gathering quietly dispersed. Two weeks later, the dead crow was still

untouched, but something or someone had surrounded the corpse with an outline

of sticks” (Marzluff & Angell, 2012, p.138).

Crows and ravens routinely gather around their dead, but rarely do they touch the body, whereas

the carcass of most other species would become a quick meal. It is not certain whether they are

paying respect to their fallen brethren, or marking a moment in time to learn about the safety in

the immediate area. It may be that these funerals hold the purpose of a board meeting where the

new hierarchy and territory situation is being worked out. While this is entirely possible, with

their known social intelligence, they may also truly be mourning the loss of their beloved.

Myths and Folklore

Crows and ravens have been celebrated in just about every culture, folklore and mythology

known to man. Ravens are perhaps the most common bird symbol in the mythologies and

religions of ancient cultures. They assume a variety of roles, ranging from messengers of deities

and sages to oracles and tricksters. “They play a central part in many creation myths and are


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typically associated with the supernatural realms lying beyond the ordinary experience”

(Starovecká, 2010). Some Native Americans tell tale of the crow that dropped a pebble on a

rock, creating the spark which brought knowledge of fire to man (Mythology, 2016). In the

legends of various tribes, Raven is typically associated with everything from the creation of the

world, to the gift of sunlight to mankind (Schlosser, 2014). There are a number of tales regarding

the mischief of raven or crow medicine, that is sometimes seen as a symbol of transformation.

Some tribes even knew the raven as a stealer of souls. They are said to be the messengers of the

spirit world or in other tribes, a trickster, much like Coyote. On the other side of the world, the

Celts thought crows escorted the sun during his nocturnal path. They were a symbol of evil,

contrary to swans; who symbolized purity (Wigington, 2016).

An old Vietnamese folktale tells of a raven and peacock who were close friends. One day the

two birds decided to set out to amuse themselves by painting one another’s feathers. The raven

set out to paint his friend in the most exquisite array of color and detail, making him the most

beautiful bird in the world. Unwilling to share his glory, the proud peacock painted his friend

black. (Marzluff & Angell, 2012)

In Norse mythology Odin is often represented by the raven/crow, usually a pair of them.

Early artwork depicts Odin as being accompanied by two black birds, Huginn and Muinnin.

Their names translate to “thought” and “memory”, and their job was to serve as Odin’s spies,

bringing him news each night from the land of men. (Starovecká, 2010) And in the bible, Noah

releases a raven to find land and it never returns. (Genisis 8:6, Revised Standard Version)

If men had wings and bore black feathers, few of them would be clever enough to be crows. –

Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, mid 1800’s


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Clever Crows

Crows are known to be very bright. They are known in the scientific Latin as Corvidae or

Corvid families of birds and are known for their aptitude, emotional acumen and social

interaction within their flock and with humans. They have social intelligence and possess

remarkable memory. In fact, crows and other members of the Corvidae family are considered to

be among the most intelligent animals in the world. For instance, crows have an extended stage

of childhood and adolescence and this has been shown to boost their intelligence by providing a

longer learning period while acquiring their skill set. Other creatures with this form of higher

intelligence also include monkeys, apes, dolphins, whales, elephants and humans.

Crows build relationships. They are monogamous. They spend the first four years of life

moving in and out of different ‘murders’ of crow tribes, seeking and courting prospective mates.

Once they have chosen a mate, they establish territory and maintain their social and sexual

intimacy through ritualized gestures, such as vibrating their tail feathers to initiate sex. Once

paired, they are only separated by death.

Crows have the ability to use tools. A new paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy

of Sciences shows us that crows understand “hidden causal agents”:

“Demonstrating beliefs by another species requires clever experimentation. In a

simple aviary on Maré, researchers watched crows use wooden tools to extract

food from within a rectangular, plastic box. To get the food the crows had to bend

over and probe the stick deep within the prone box. Now for the clever trick. A

person did not have to walk into the hide to trigger the moving stick. Instead, in

half the trials only one person walked into the aviary and stood in the far corner.

Nobody entered the hide. Still, the stick probed in and out from the blind toward


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the food. And after the stick had moved the requisite 15 times, the single person

left the crow’s cage. In this condition, the crows were left to ponder what caused

the stick to move. Would they believe the stick’s action revealed the presence of

something in the blind that they had not seen, and that was presumed to still be

hiding? You bet! Crows that witnessed the stick moving in association with a

researcher entering and leaving the hide returned to forage with little concern. But

those that only witnessed the stick moving and never saw a person enter or leave

the hide were extremely hesitant to pick up a tool and probe for food…The

hesitant crow is thinking about things it cannot see. It is reasoning and acting on

its belief” (Taylor, Miller, & Grey, 2012, p. 2).

Their strong cognitive memory is capable of remembering human faces and associating

them with their actions and behaviors; recalling when they have been mistreated or rewarded

with food and other kind deeds. Jaymi Heimbuch from the Mother Nature Network describes,

“Crows learn to recognize individual faces and teach their offspring who (or what) to be

concerned about. And because crows have a long memory, a researcher could be disliked by

local crows for decades” (Heimbuch, 2015). They are capable of reason and can integrate and

shape what they sense into reasoned action. They have remained a curiosity to scientists for their

nimble intelligence and avid curiosity. They have exhibited spontaneous behaviors such as

mixing water with dried masa, to moisten it for more pleasant eating. It seems they are able to

count as well. Savage recounts the study by Otto Koehler a German ethologist:

“Believed the birds might have an innate sense of number: to test this conjecture,

he designed a series of experiments in which ‘Jacob’ the raven was presented with

a group of two, three, four, five or six small objects. Beside this ‘key’ was placed


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a set of five small boxes, each identified with two, three, four, five or six black

marks. The objects in the key and the marks on the boxes differed in size. Shape

and positioning and were changed from trial to trial. Jacob’s task was to match the

number of objects with the number of marks on one of the lids, open the correct

box and obtain a food reward. In trial after trial, this is exactly what he did.

Without the aid of language, Jacob the raven could count to six” (Savage, 1995, p.

4).

Crows Communicate

Intelligence and social ability seem to go hand in hand, or wing in wing in this matter. These

birds have varying tone to their calls and communicate through a variety of movements such as

head gesturing and particular mannerisms such as the way they might ruffle their feathers. The

American crow has more than two dozen separate vocalizations and will use them to produce a

variety of eighteen to sixty-four recognizable calls. Candice Savage observed that they are even

known to call one another by name:

“…able not only to recognize and remember their mates and companions but also

to discern and interpret subtle shadings in their appearance and behavior. These

subtle shadings- the tone of a call, the contour of head feathers – permit an

individual to read the mood and intention of its associates. The ability to seize

such meaningful details from a hubbub of meaningless activity (leaves rustling,

feathers ruffled by a breeze) seems likely to be a mental ability “ (Savage, 1995,

p. 66).

Crows are renowned to be the most playful of birds, playing games such as Tug of War or

King of the Castle (one bird brandishes a stick while atop a mound and the other bird will rush it,


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trying to grab the stick away), within their tribe and are known to engage in play with other

species as well. For instance, a young raven developed a game with a dog in which bird and

mammal, apparently reading one another’s gestures and signals of intention, took turns chasing

on another around a tree trunk. They have also been known to play Catch Me if You Can with

wolves, a pastime with great risk! Although most of their games are solitary in nature, they will

copy one another’s behaviors if witnessed. For example, if one crow slides down a snowbank or

a piece of wood, all the other birds are likely to follow suit. If one hangs upside-down from a

wire and passes a piece of cheese from its foot to its beak and back again, another may line up

beside it and try to do the same. This means that novel behaviors that are created by one

individual are quickly learned by its feathered associates. This sort of creative play requires not

only intelligence, but is in itself, a mental exercise of brain power. Play is serious brain business.

“Teenage” crows are especially known to pay and frolic with one another. There have been

many instances that prove their ability to work together as a team through intricate

communications and social skills:

“In a series of elegant experiments, Bernd Heinrich was able to demonstrate that

young ravens actively recruit one another’s help. In one instance, he set out a

carcass and over it, broadcast recorded raven “’yells’ – the excited shouts that

juveniles give when they locate such a food bonanza. Twenty seconds later, a

raven flew out of the forest, inspected the prize and left. Within two minutes,

twenty-nine ravens streamed into sight, arriving from the direction in which the

first bird had gone. None of these birds landed- ravens are initially timid around

large carcasses – but the next morning, forty ravens whooshed to the site… and

fed” (Savage, 1995, p. 70).


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These games are often involved in their courting rituals, as an unmated bird may invite his single

lady birds to feast on his found carcass to prove he is a good provider.

Liz Langley, a writer for National Geographic, wrote an article about Kayli Swift, a Ph.D.

student in environmental science and researcher at the University of Washington who did a two

year study on the behaviors of crows. She initiated her experiment by placing food for the birds

at over one hundred sites on and near the university campus to attract the breeding and nesting

crows:

“Swift then had about 25 human volunteers don masks and asked them to stand

near the food for 30 minutes, in clear view of the crows. The masks obscured the

volunteers' facial expressions, as well as allowed a rotating cast of people to be

involved in the experiment.

Each volunteer was either holding a dead crow, standing near a dead red-

tailed hawk—a crow predator—or standing near a dead red-tailed hawk holding

the dead crow. (All the birds used in the experiment were taxidermied.) As the

control variable in the experiment—the element that's unchanged—there was

either no volunteer present or one who was empty-handed.

Almost universally, the crows responded to seeing the people and dead

birds by “scolding”—or putting out an alert call to other crows. Of the four

situations, the hawk-and-dead-crow combination provoked the most reaction. The

crows did not react to the empty-handed control volunteer “ (Langley, 2015, p. 3).


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Bird Brains

Additional experiments have revealed that crows never forget a face and will warn

generations of their comrades about potentially dangerous persons. Research done by Swift’s

professor at the University of Washington, John Marzluff, shows that when imaged, “the

hippocampus, the part of the brain associated with learning and memory, is activated by the sight

of a person holding a dead crow “(Langley, 2015, p. 5). Marzluff himself further explains:

“Their learning is most likely facilitated by the sensitivity of their brain’s

amygdala to the release of stress hormones. In mammals, including humans, the

amygdala is at the center of evaluating sensory information of social and

emotional significance. Just as the amygdala is important to sculpting what one

learns through play, it is critical to the attention, perception, reasoning and

remembering that occurs during sad or fearful events. The amygdala tunes our

attention to emotional scenes through its reciprocal connections with the

hippocampus and visual areas of our brains. Even before we are aware of an

event, the neurons in the amygdala have been activated by visual sensations,

which trigger reflexive responses that avoid danger and focus our attention to the

scene” (Marzluff & Angell, 2012, p. 34).

Later in his book, Marzluff goes deeper into the explanation of how the neuroscience of

the crow brain could explain the proof of the emotional connection of these birds:

“Social meaning is encoded in the linkages among neurons in the amygdala,

forebrain and hippocampus that are sensitive to experience and ongoing rewards.


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The meaning of partnership affects and is affected by the motivation and reward

circuits between nucleus membrane and forebrain, Dopamine release in response

to another’s offer of food, play, or companionship binds to the receptors in the

nucleus accumbens motivating the formation of a partnership. Receptivity to

another’s advances would also increase the dopamine. …The hormones

mesotocin and vasotosin appear to motivate animals to seek social rewards…by

linking the pleasure of companionship.” (Marzluff & Angell, 2012, p. 167)

These kinds of neurotransmitter, hormonal connections are the same in human brains and those

of higher intelligence. It is in this neuroscientific information that it is very likely that the

emotional intelligence of these birds is valid. Furthermore, in the 1960’s, neurologist Stanley

Cobb studied these avian brains, and he discovered that,

”…instead of relying on the cortex, birds have developed another part of the

forebrain, the hyper striatum, (which mammals lack) as their chief organ of

intelligence. The larger the hyper striatum, the better birds fare on intelligence

tests. Crows are on the high end of this scale, corvids being at the high end of this

scale. Their brain to body ratio equals that of dolphins and nearly matches our

own. , What’s more, is their large brains are packed tight with exceptionally large

numbers of brain cells. “ (Savage, 1995, p. 29)

Learning from One Another

After the dead bird landed at my feet, I bent down to touch him and felt that he was cold and

had likely been deceased for some time. I picked him up with a cloth napkin I had in my hands,


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and placed him in the tall flowers that grew in another part of my garden; where I thought he

could return to the earth in peace. I have never seen another crow in my yard since. It has been a

year since this episode, and all of the crows that used to hang out in my yard and the treetops, are

nowhere to be found. (Swift, 2015) references the use of scarecrows, literal in their name:

“Previous experiments in crows, suggested that danger learning is likely a key motivator behind

these gatherings since corvid effigies can be an effective deterrent, a fact that is old hat to many

farmers” (p.2). Swift and Marzluff suggest that the reason crows pay such close attention is

because it is a learning opportunity for survival, a chance to know which individual humans,

animals or situations are dangerous. Gathering together may be a way to share this information

with a group, protecting the remaining members of the flock. If only the crows in my yard knew

I meant no harm and that my intentions were only to protect their friend and give him my version

of a grieving ritual, within the peace of the tall wildflowers in my garden. Had I known then

what I know now, that they often will make venerations to their deceased in the way of placing

small sticks and stones or other found objects near and around their dead; it is not known exactly

why they do this, whether it is to mark the spot to warn others, or to pay some sort of homage;

perhaps as another ritual to bring closure to their grief. It is a curiosity for certain.

During my investigation I have discovered that the creativity and abstraction of these birds

place them in a category that is distinctly special in the world of fauna. After studying several

books and articles about them, there is no doubt that they have deep feelings and experience a

range of emotion, from joy to sorrow. It does not surprise me at all that crows and other animals

experience emotions and have physical responses to emotional events. I was surprised to learn

that they also shed tears. In my research, there was almost nothing available scientifically to back

this claim, not in any peer reviewed journal, to prove one way or another that in fact they do cry,


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but several laymen sites account to animals, including these birds, having true emotional

responses when in a stressed emotional situations. Elephants are the most well documented of

animals in regard to having obvious emotional stress and reactions when grieving their loved

ones. (Do animals cry, 2016) I believe that with the proper study, we would find that most, if not

all animals have these feelings of grief when a cohort dies. These colorful black birds are

enchanting. It is certain that they mourn their dead and conduct grieving rituals to express their

lament, to what degree science agrees is of little consequence to me. I am not at all surprised

after learning of the crow’s emotional intelligence that they would gather together to pine over

the loss of one of their own. They form real relationships with one another and throughout their

community. Perhaps we have more to learn from these bird brains than we could have ever

dreamed.


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References

Bradford, A. (2015, 11 5). Facts about crows. Retrieved from Live Science:

http://www.livescience.com/52716-crows-ravens.html

Do animals cry. (2016). Retrieved from WiseGeek: http://www.wisegeek.org/do-animals-cry.htm

Genisis 8:6 (Vol. Genesis 8:6). (Revised Standard Version). Retrieved from Bible Hub.

Heimbuch, J. (2015, October 14). Why crows hold funerals for their dead. Retrieved 4 24, 2016, from

Mother Nature Network: http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/animals/stories/why-crows-hold-

funerals-their-dead

Langley, L. (2015, October 3). Weird animal queastion of the week. Retrieved 4 24, 2016, from National

Geographic: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015/10/151003-animals-science-crows-

birds-culture-brains/

Marzluff, J., & Angell, T. (2012). Gifts of the crow:How perception, emotion and thought allow smart

birds to behave like humans. New York: Artia.

Mythology. (2016). The first fire; A Cherokee legend. Retrieved from First People:

http://www.firstpeople.us/FP-Html-Legends/TheFirstFire-Cherokee.html

Savage, C. (1995). Bird Brains; the intelligece of crows, ravens, magpies and jays. San Francisco: Sierra

Club Books.

Schlosser, S. E. (2014, December 10). Crow brings the daylight; An Inuit tale. Retrieved from American

Folklore: http://americanfolklore.net/folklore/2010/07/crow_brings_the_daylight.html


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Starovecká, Z. (2010, October 30). Ravens and Crows in mythology, Folklore and Religion. Retrieved from

Perspectives: http://www.perspectivesmagazine.sk/news/ravens-and-crows-in-mythology-

folklore-and-religion/

Swift, K. (2015, September 26). Why crows gather around their dead. Retrieved 4 24, 2016, from Corvid

Research: https://corvidresearch.wordpress.com/2015/09/

Taylor, A. H., Miller, R., & Grey, R. D. (2012, October 2). New Caledonian crows reason about hidden

causal agents. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the Unirted States of America,

109(40).

Wigington, P. (2016, April 5). Crows and Ravens. Retrieved from About Religion:

http://paganwiccan.about.com/od/othermagicspells/p/The-Magic-Of-Crows-And-Ravens.htm


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An Original Artwork by- Dhani Toney Sullivan 2016

Watercolor and Micron Pen on Paper


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