elodieunderglass:

nubbsgalore:

“penguin was just a small, wobbly headed magpie chick when my son, noah, found her lying injured on the grass after being blown out of her nest. she was very lucky to survive such a horrendous fall but without immediate care would have died within a day.   

“we built her a simple nest and kept her warm with a tiny blanket. noah immediately named her penguin, due to her black and white plumage.  it is not easy to look after any injured wild creature [so] we undertook a great deal of research about magpies and were extremely grateful for all the specialist veterinary advice we received, especially in regard to penguin’s diet.  

“while getting penguin to eat was a real victory, her recovery remained touch and go. but over time she grew in both stature and confidence. 

“as penguin’s strength grew so did her curiosity. we never locked her inside any kind of cage so she was always free to venture outside the house. it didn’t take long before she started to forage for her own food in the backyard and it was clear she was becoming increasingly independent.  

“despite being free to leave she still chose to sleep inside the house for at least six months. fortunately there is a large frangipani tree in our yard that penguin always felt comfortable in, so that became her home. however if we ever leave a window open she’ll fly inside the house at sunrise and scamper down the hallway to one of the bedrooms and jump into bed.  

“australian magpies are known for their beautiful songs and penguin began singing short songs during the day from a very early age and would eventually sing for hours and hours at a time. whenever we’d pull up in the driveway she’d let out a loud and melodic warble to welcome us home then flap her wings with excitement and run straight to the front door to be let inside.  

“while she will always be a part of our family penguin does not belong to us. the world is hers to explore and she regularly travels elsewhere, sometimes for days at a time. we won’t see her for a while and then, without warning, she confidently walks in the door as if nothing has changed.” (source, edited for length)

OH

summertimelovegirl:

blue-author:

awkwardsmilememe:

THIS CROW  UNDERSTANDS WATER DISPLACEMENT. WHY THE HELL DO I HAVE TO BE TOLD EVERY YEAR BY A TEACHER HOW WATER DISPLACEMENT WORKS. DO THEY THINK I’M LESS INTELLIGENT THAN A  CROW? I’M DONE.

Crows discovered the principle of displacement in the third century BC, when the philosopher Awkimedes, upon noticing the level of his bird bath rose in proportion with the amount of his body that was submerged, reportedly exclaimed “EURECAW!” and flew through the streets of Athens shouting his discovery.

EURECAW

friendly-neighborhood-patriarch:

rassoey:

avianawareness:

aph-romania:

reallymisscoffee:

dansknapp:

stultiloquentia:

doctormemelordmd:

fangirling-so-hard-rn:

Crows are scary
They

• use tools
• Can be taught to speak (like parrots)
• Have huge brains for birds
• like seriously their brain-to-body size ratio is equal to that of a chimpanzee
• They vocalize anger, sadness, or happiness in response to things
• they are scary smart at solving puzzles
• some crows stay with their mates until one of them dies
• they can remember faces
• SIDENOTE HERE BECAUSE HOLY SHIT.  They did an experiment where these guys wore masks and some of them fucked with crows.  Pretty soon the crows recognized the masks = douchebag.  But the nice guys with masks they left alone.  THEN, OH WE’RE NOT DONE, NO SIR crows that WEREN’T EVEN IN THE EXPERIMENT AND NEVER SAW THE MASK BEFORE knew about mask-dudes and attacked them on sight.  THEY PASSED ON THE FUCKING INFORMATION TO THEIR CROW BUDDIES.
• They remember places where crows were killed by farmers and change their migration patterns.

Guys I’m really scared of crows now.
(q) 

Yeah but have you seen this 

A colleague of my dad’s lives next to a lake, and looked out the window one morning to see a duck trapped in the ice. A crow swooped down. “Oh hell,” she thought, expecting carnage, because crows are opportunists. But the crow chipped at the ice with its beak until the duck was free.

Idk of this counts but a few crows saved me from a magpie swooping attack once ,they’re bros who can tell when magpies are being unreasonable and need to chill

I love crows so damn much. When I was fifteen, I hit a pretty serious bout of depression, to the point I was in my room for months. Well, a family of crows made a nest in a tree outside my window. There were two parents and two chicks. One chick was healthy and strong. One was weak, and had a caw like something being strained. It sounded more like a rooster crowing and so my parents jokingly named him ‘Buck’.Well… months passed and Buck’s sibling was taught to fly. His parents focused on the sibling because the sibling was strong. The father stayed behind to try and teach Buck, but I saw him try to fly, fail, and crash to the floor. His father helped him back up into the tree.

Every day, I would watch Buck from my window until one day I opened it and started talking to him. He was small and gangly and he couldn’t caw right. His feathers were all over the place and I felt a kinship. So I made a deal with him. I told him that if he could do it, if he could fly, then I could find the strength to get up. Well… near the end of the season, after talking with him every day, I finally saw him get out of the nest. He went to the edge of his branch, braced himself, and jumped… and just before he hit the ground, he soared back up into the sky. I cheered harder than I ever had before.

That winter, Buck left the area. I was crestfallen. I felt like I’d lost a friend. But I was so damn proud of him. 

Cut to the next spring? I’m walking up the driveway one day when suddenly I hear a sound… a broken caw. I look up, and Buck is sitting in a tree above my head. He stared at me and puffed his feathers, then hopped down in front of me and cawed again. I was so damn thrilled, and I told him how proud I was of him. He ruffled his feathers and then soared off into his old tree. 

That summer? I heard two broken caws. One from Buck… and one from his chick.

Cut to ten years later? We have a family of crows who all have a very distinct caw and they come here and spend every spring, summer, and fall on our property. Buck still greets me every spring.

that last reply made me wanna cry. that’s so beautiful.

Don’t forget the Russian Crow SLEDDING DOWN A ROOF not once, but twice. 

this one morning i kept hearing really loud caws, i remember it was like 5am, LIKE REALLY LOUD AND ANNOYING AND AGGRESSIVE, so loud that i could hear it through a closed window, and i eventually went outside to check it out. there was a crow on my front lawn, it had an injury on its head and couldn’t fly and there were two other crows circling right above it, and they were cawing like mad. 

i tried to get close and take a better look and one of them dived super low and tried to attack me. so i went back in the house and chopped some sliced raw meat and tossed it at him from a distance.

a few more times later, very soon after, they could tell i was trying to help, and did not attack me. i was “allowed” to walk up close and pick him up, he couldn’t drink water properly so i had to dip my finger in a bowl and stick it in his mouth.

i did this few times a day and it went on for about a week before he disappeared, i thought he recovered and left, but he came back the next day and lands on me, and i see him around the block quite often, and he would come sit on my shoulder for a few minutes and then fly away again. i feel like i’ve adopted a son.

fuccn crows, man

firelorcl:

vortexanomaly:

the crumb

this is the most intense photo i’ve ever seen

aph-romania:

reallymisscoffee:

dansknapp:

stultiloquentia:

doctormemelordmd:

fangirling-so-hard-rn:

Crows are scary
They

• use tools
• Can be taught to speak (like parrots)
• Have huge brains for birds
• like seriously their brain-to-body size ratio is equal to that of a chimpanzee
• They vocalize anger, sadness, or happiness in response to things
• they are scary smart at solving puzzles
• some crows stay with their mates until one of them dies
• they can remember faces
• SIDENOTE HERE BECAUSE HOLY SHIT.  They did an experiment where these guys wore masks and some of them fucked with crows.  Pretty soon the crows recognized the masks = douchebag.  But the nice guys with masks they left alone.  THEN, OH WE’RE NOT DONE, NO SIR crows that WEREN’T EVEN IN THE EXPERIMENT AND NEVER SAW THE MASK BEFORE knew about mask-dudes and attacked them on sight.  THEY PASSED ON THE FUCKING INFORMATION TO THEIR CROW BUDDIES.
• They remember places where crows were killed by farmers and change their migration patterns.

Guys I’m really scared of crows now.
(q) 

Yeah but have you seen this 

A colleague of my dad’s lives next to a lake, and looked out the window one morning to see a duck trapped in the ice. A crow swooped down. “Oh hell,” she thought, expecting carnage, because crows are opportunists. But the crow chipped at the ice with its beak until the duck was free.

Idk of this counts but a few crows saved me from a magpie swooping attack once ,they’re bros who can tell when magpies are being unreasonable and need to chill

I love crows so damn much. When I was fifteen, I hit a pretty serious bout of depression, to the point I was in my room for months. Well, a family of crows made a nest in a tree outside my window. There were two parents and two chicks. One chick was healthy and strong. One was weak, and had a caw like something being strained. It sounded more like a rooster crowing and so my parents jokingly named him ‘Buck’.Well… months passed and Buck’s sibling was taught to fly. His parents focused on the sibling because the sibling was strong. The father stayed behind to try and teach Buck, but I saw him try to fly, fail, and crash to the floor. His father helped him back up into the tree.

Every day, I would watch Buck from my window until one day I opened it and started talking to him. He was small and gangly and he couldn’t caw right. His feathers were all over the place and I felt a kinship. So I made a deal with him. I told him that if he could do it, if he could fly, then I could find the strength to get up. Well… near the end of the season, after talking with him every day, I finally saw him get out of the nest. He went to the edge of his branch, braced himself, and jumped… and just before he hit the ground, he soared back up into the sky. I cheered harder than I ever had before.

That winter, Buck left the area. I was crestfallen. I felt like I’d lost a friend. But I was so damn proud of him. 

Cut to the next spring? I’m walking up the driveway one day when suddenly I hear a sound… a broken caw. I look up, and Buck is sitting in a tree above my head. He stared at me and puffed his feathers, then hopped down in front of me and cawed again. I was so damn thrilled, and I told him how proud I was of him. He ruffled his feathers and then soared off into his old tree. 

That summer? I heard two broken caws. One from Buck… and one from his chick.

Cut to ten years later? We have a family of crows who all have a very distinct caw and they come here and spend every spring, summer, and fall on our property. Buck still greets me every spring.

that last reply made me wanna cry. that’s so beautiful.

huntersonthewing:

askfordoodles:

littlemissbloo:

whitmerule:

pardonmewhileipanic:

red3blog:

pardonmewhileipanic:

notcuddles:

nesft:

#CROW NO

Crow: CROW YES!

It’s actually impossible to measure how many fucks a corvid give because there is no device sensitive enough to register such a tiny amount.

science/animal side of tumblr… explain to me the birb thing

Tail Pulling is a behavior noted in many corvids. The practical application is to create a distraction that will allow the birb to make off with the target’s food. Imagine being in the lunch room and a large fellow has a Twinkie you covet. You can’t just take it from him because he’ll defend his Twinkie. But if you thwap him on the back of his neck and then dash around to snag the Twinkie while he investigates, you stand a decent chance of enjoying spongey goodness. This is basically that in birb form.

Except corvids don’t only do this as a distraction. Sometimes they seem to just being doing it to mess with other animals/birbs. But to use my lunch room analogy, there are times you might thwap someone sneakily on the back of the neck just for amusement. Primates exhibit behavior that appears to be just be annoying other animals for amusement. Given how intelligent crows are, its not unlikely that this is a manifestation of an innate desire to just fuck with someone else for the fun of it. Such as this from the link above:

THANK YOU FOR THE BIRB KNOWLEDGE

BECAUSE IT IS FUN

This speaks to me on a molecular level.

birbs just wanna have fun

Sorry to hijack a little, but to put it bluntly, corvids are also pretty BALSY. They are more than prepared to harass other huge birds of prey which could deal them a lot of damage. There’s plenty of cases of corvids ‘riding’ other birds as well. It’s often to harass the larger bird out of the area, but as @red3blog said, they quite often (in layman’s terms) enjoy fucking shit up for fun.

‘Where the hell is the seatbelt on this thing?’

I mean they deserve a medal for having such huge bird balls imo

Literally no fucks are given by corvids. Ever.

thewomanandthebell:

@thesovereignpowerbottom

undeadwill:

friendly-neighborhood-patriarch:

theinturnetexplorer:

the crows are his allies now.

“THE DEBT MUST BE REPAID. YOU HAVE OUR ALLEGIANCE, HUMAN”

@theclockworkscarecrow

That’s actually how it works.