A primary characteristic of intelligence and wisdom (sapiency) is being able to problem solve issues through learning and adaptation, and then interactively communicating gained ideas into a body of knowledge and insight. This theoretically may require the formation of a culture. Crows are highly opportunistic within urban environments, making use of human garbage and even adapting old learned behaviors, such as casting nuts and even turtles in shells down on rocks to access food by casting nuts down on a human-created pavement. Crows are also effective communicators, teaching their young the tools and tricks they learned to survive. They are highly observant of each others failures and successes within the loose cooperative groups that they form, and a success in behavior tends to radiate quite quickly within a cultural crow group, and among nearby groups.
I've also seen eagles in southern Europe, along the Mediterranean, throw turtles down on rocks to access food, so this behavior is not unique to crows.
This is my short (and not so good) video of the Danish gray crow using pavement to its advantage
Recently, while walking within my rural Copenhagen community, I observed a group of gray crows (Corvus cornix) - gråkrage in Danish - casting nuts from about 10 meters height down on a moderately trafficked road directly into the path of oncoming traffic. I know of other crow species, such as the New Caledonian crow (Corvus moneduloides), whose habitat originated exclusively among some island groups in the Pacific, and the Asian Carrion crow (Corvus corone), both of whom have been observed to adapt old tool-use behaviors in nature by using new tools that humans inadvertently offer them and communicating that knowledge to their young and among their cultural groups.
In this video, David Attenborough describes how wild crows inhabiting cities use it to their advantage:
My hypothesis with what I've observed is that the Danish gray crow is slowly learning to evolve an older behavioral pattern of casting nuts on hard pavement into the accidental knowledge that if a car is approaching, the reward of accessing the nut meat increases. Of course, a theoretical primary problem is to survive such traffic interactions. So these crows are exhibiting a high degree of intelligence to gauge such issues. I haven't yet seen any dead crows along our roads, but have seen some pigeons get hit as they attempt to access food lying on a roadway.
I'll be adding to this blog as time permits. A few decades ago I had thought of doing a scientific paper on the urban culture of the American crow (Corvus brachyrhynchos). For me this is exciting, and what I've thought of doing is set up my camera on a tripod (the brief video here is very shaky as I zoom in from a distance by hand) and placing a cluster of nuts near where this crow community tends to hang out, and see what happens. But for now that would require more time than I have. If anyone has any ideas please feel free to share.
For deeper insight:
The 15 Smartest Animals on Earth
From PBS: The scene: a traffic light crossing
From Denmark's Ornithological Institute: Gråkrage (Corvus cornix) in Danish
by Bent Lorentzen, (c) 2011, all rights reserved
Lorentzen is also author to "Dragon's Moon," a saga of a young dragon seeking his place in a confusing world filled with antagonists and allies who never seem to be what they are. It came in 4th in the 2002 Dream Realm Awards
and
Krona, the Dragons of Nistala, a 2009 sequel that propels the reader into high adventure, war and love, as an extinction event and social collapse foreshadow the coming of humanity.
In 2002, Bent Lorentzen won the Ground Zero Literature prize for his short story, Passage, of a Cherokee shamanic response to the 9/11 mass-murder horror
Many of Lorentzen's cultural articles have been published by major publications, such as the World & I, on the Danish celebration of America's birth in the Rebild Hills (A Joyful Day), and the story of the 4th of July along the Gunpowder River north of Washington DC in A RIVER RUNS THROUGH THEM via the USIA under President Clinton.
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