Tuesday 11 November 2014

WILD BIRD WEDNESDAY - Lest We Forget

Before I show you today’s birds on WBW on this "Armistice Day", I have posted this shot in tribute to all the men and women who died or were injured in any of the wars in our world.


When I was making this post I wondered what birds are best at remembering things and I came up with birds in the Crow family also Pigeon, however today I will featured the Crow family. The photographs below are of Rook, Carrion Crow, Hooded Crow and Jackdaw.


Crows and humans share the ability to recognize faces and associate them with negative, as well as positive, feelings.


“The regions of the crow brain that work together are not unlike those that work together in mammals, including humans,” said John Marzluff, University of Washington professor of environmental and forest sciences. “These regions were suspected to work in birds but not documented until now.


“For example it appears that birds have a region of their brain that is analogous to the amygdala of mammals,” he said. “The amygdala is the region of the vertebrate brain where negative associations are stored as memories.  Previous work primarily concerned its function in mammals while our work shows that a similar system is at work in birds.  Our approach could be used in other animals – such as lizards and frogs – to see if the process is similar in those vertebrates as well.”


The crows were captured by investigators all wearing masks that the researchers referred to as the threatening face.  The crows were never treated in a threatening way, but the fact they’d been captured created a negative association with the mask they saw.  Then for the four weeks they were in captivity, they were fed by people wearing a mask different from the first, this one called the caring face.  The masks were based on actual people’s faces and both bore neutral expressions so the associations made by the crows was based on their treatment.


Studies have demonstrated that crows can learn to recognize human faces, and hold onto that memory (and sometimes a grudge) for a long time. Researchers from the University of Washington wanted to go deeper and understand how they do so at the level of the brain. They were interested to find out whether crows recognized faces using the same neural processes as humans, or in another way with which we were not yet familiar.


To find out, the researchers captured twelve wild American crows while wearing a particular mask of a human face. For four weeks following their capture, they fed and cared for the crows while wearing a different mask. The idea was to see if the birds would recognize one face (mask) as the “threatening” one that captured them, and the other face as the “caring” one that brought them delicious food.


One by one, they took the crows and presented them with a view of one of the two faces, or simply an empty room. Since you can’t keep a crow calmly strapped inside a brain scanner while this is going on, they gave the crows a chemical that functions as a sort of dye or marker. When a part of the brain becomes active, it takes in this chemical from the bloodstream. Afterward, they anesthetized the crow and placed it in a PET scanner. The areas of the brain that contained the chemical marker showed up clearly, allowing the researchers to see what parts of the brain had been busy while the crow was checking out the sights they were shown.


 From the images (as well as the crows’ behavior), they were able to tell that the crows recognized the “threatening” and “caring” faces as just that—no surprise there. Interestingly, they did so by using the same regions of the brain that humans do when they process images of faces and associate them with the relevant emotions.



Why is this useful information? The researchers explain, “Understanding how wild animals integrate perception, memory, and emotion to behave adaptively may allow researchers to generalize important findings across species and sensory modalities, develop strategies to lower stress in captive animals, shape animal actions to reduce human-wildlife conflicts, and engage the public to appreciate the cognitive capacity of other species.”


Researchers have only tested crow memory for five years, but they believe that the birds remember faces for their entire lives - fifteen to forty years. Get on the wrong side of one crow and you could be mobbed everywhere for the rest of your life.  No wonder they talk about a “murder” of Crows!

My advice - Don't mess with Crows!!

I hope you enjoyed this very different post.

I am linking this post with WILD BIRD WEDNESDAY

Thank you for visiting and also for the lovely comments you leave me.

27 comments:

  1. I really like crows of all sorts - I was a bit disappointed not to get good images of rooks and jackdaws when I was back in the UK. This are nice shots.

    I'm glad you said that you liked some of the B/W shots more than others - and did not really like some at all! Its honest!

    Cheers - Stewart M - Melbourne

    ReplyDelete
  2. I have always thought crows were very smart birds. And I have always enjoyed them, as noisy as they can be sometimes.

    ReplyDelete
  3. i am really enjoying all of the facts and interesting things about the animals and birds that you are posting Margaret! Have learned something every time. Aren't God's creatures simply amazing!

    ReplyDelete
  4. The intellect of Crows is outstanding. I love them.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Fascinating, Margaret. Thank you for your research. Great photos too.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Lovely tribute image Margaret.

    Now I know why I can never get a good crow picture...it's my face!! Now, where did I put that paper bag?...[:-{

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. HI Trevor Sending one over right away!!! I have missed your humour of late. Glad you liked the tribute and thanks for visiting and leaving a oomment.

      Delete
  7. love these birds. love their family ways. :)

    ReplyDelete
  8. Nice tribute, Margaret...certainly a bit different from many others on the blogs this morning.

    ReplyDelete
  9. I just love the close-up shots. Super!

    ReplyDelete
  10. Nice GIFF. Raining blood. Thanks for remembering.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Great post about the crows. So much info. I am still working on noticing the tiniest details that define the different types. Sort of difficult to see when the birds are flitting about quickly. Nice remembrance of all who have served.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Crows are one of the smartest birds around! I find the term "Bird Brain" to be not at all true! Phil had a pet crow growing up and he was extremely bright, he was named Billy. Red rain on the poppies, how sorrowful. There is a song called Red Rain by Peter Gabriel.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Very interesting facts about the Crows and beautiful glossy plumage on the birds.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Crows are smart birds. Great post, Margaret.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Crows are fascinating birds, wonderful photos.

    ReplyDelete
  16. So interesting Margaret. I had no idea of these studies. Did know how smart crows are! I think they could take over the world if they only had thumbs ;)))

    ReplyDelete
  17. This is amazing, Margaret. I love crows and how intelligent they are. Understanding their behavior is a plus for those of us who have the opportunity to interact with them. I have my own little flock of crows that protect my feeders from hawks when they are here. They scout the whole neighborhood and you can hear them mobbing when they spot an intruder. This is just so cool. Have you seen the video of the crow solving a multifaceted puzzle? That, like this research, is also awesome. Thank you, Margaret ... I love this!

    Andrea @ From The Sol

    ReplyDelete
  18. They are such wonderful birds. Really like the Hooded Crow.

    ReplyDelete
  19. Excellent post Margaret.

    There is an excellent book 'Gifts of the Crow' by John Marzuff and Tony Angell that explores the many complex similarities between them and us.

    ReplyDelete
  20. They are certainly smart birds. Excellent post.

    ReplyDelete
  21. Wow. How fascinating. I know some cats can remember those who don't treat them well.... my sister had one that hated a guy who put her in a guitar case... she never forgot that.

    What a great post this was Margaret.....

    ReplyDelete
  22. great shots. The crow family are clever ones.

    ReplyDelete
  23. Wonderful shots of the crows. (I did a crow too). They are intelligent birds. This morning they had flown off but as soon as they saw me coming out the (watch crow) cawed for the others and soon I had about 25 of them eating the peanuts I leave out.

    ReplyDelete
  24. Great shots! They are so noisy here and will not leave my poor hawks alone. :)
    I have always liked 'a murder of crows'. I suppose because they seem so ominous to me. I'm hiding my face from now on. :)

    ReplyDelete