The Birds Are Watching!
If they don’t like you, they remember you
Movie director Alfred Hitchcock may have had it right: The birds are watching us.
Crows, in particular, keep watch on you if they think you’re out to bother them — or even their families and friends. What’s more, they never forget your face.
Researchers in Seattle spent five years banding crows and then watching their behavior. They concluded that the birds are super-smart. If they decide someone is a threat, they’ll pass that information on to their friends and family, and even after going for a year without seeing the offending human, the crows will harass that person on sight – cackling, swooping and dive-bombing in mobs of 30 or more.
The researchers themselves came under attack when the crows decided they didn’t like their friends being banded and watched. And when other researchers went into the neighborhood wearing facemasks that resembled the faces of their colleagues, the crows started attacking them, too.
Read more at MSNBC, the Everett Herald and Discovery News.