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Smart Birds use cars to open their food watch!

youtube.com — These birds are getting very smart and learning to adapt. Very fascinating stuff.

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  • dclowd9901, on 10/12/2007, -1/+80Early bird gets the 6 o'clock rush hour.
    • gd007, on 10/12/2007, -33/+1don't that increases the risk to get run over.
    • nazsco, on 10/12/2007, -0/+32no, they wait for the green light on the crossing
    • super_spyder, on 10/12/2007, -0/+36even the birds are smarter in japan
    • theone3, on 10/12/2007, -0/+32gd007 - How does it feel to be outsmarted by a crow?
    • blackjack75, on 10/12/2007, -3/+7"no, they wait for the green light on the crossing"

      That's what you would like to believe. The last image clearly shows that he gets out at the last minute when cars nearly run over him. He probably has no idea there is a green light. He just goes when there's no traffic and escapes when traffic comes back.
    • cryonix, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5some crows near where i live do this. I saw something drop from above and land in the road, i told my girlfriend to run it over. we stopped at the light and saw the crow fly back down, pick up the remains and fly away. i was surprised that even around here they have picked up this nifty trick.
    • diggmaddy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3So long and thanks for all the tyres!
  • dan2, on 10/12/2007, -1/+72If you like that, check this one out http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IntRMVukrX0
    • gmillerd, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10That bird and the beat boxing parrot from this morning would be quite the duo.
    • akashra, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8I wish I could provide a link to it, but in Attenborough's latest documentary, it showed a heap of birds which clean and scrub their living/calling areas to try to attract females.

      The coolest bit they showed though was one bird which would would expand its feathers (much like a peacock does to scare others away, except with the reverse effect), and jumps around in front of the female. When it comes around and you see it from in front, the thing has this massive blue smiley face imprinted amongst the black feathers - it was the coolest thing I've seen in ages.

      If anyone knows of a link to this vid on YouTube, they should post it, it's a great clip :)
    • MetricLobster, on 10/12/2007, -2/+20That was cool also

      but a sad day when humans have penetrated so far into the jungles and forests of the world that the animals start to sound like car alarms .... *shrug* oh well... time to play some bad music... lets see if we can get these birds yellin for there bitches and hoes...
    • jackarmstrong, on 10/12/2007, -6/+2No way. That CAN'T be real.
    • igraham09, on 10/12/2007, -3/+12O
      M
      FECKING
      G

      A bird that makes chainsaw noises...

      where can i get one?
    • Murdats, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9you guys have never heard of lyrebirds?
      everyone knows that they make all sorts fo wiered sounds like chainsaws

      (upon looking it up it seems only australians would know this because its an australian bird, its on one of our coins)
    • NearlyHeadless, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6"If anyone knows of a link to this vid on YouTube, they should post it, it's a great clip :)"

      That's the Bird of Paradise:
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P85LoHftEKs

      Bower birds' displays are also impressive:
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpFG9sQNbK4
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ygz-SiqF-YA
    • AxiomShell, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Impressive.
      Isn't the stage name of the Lyrebird Larvell Jones?
    • ashlvsya, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1So that's where they sampled the R2D2 sounds?
  • chicken101, on 10/12/2007, -1/+59The funniest part is, if I was given the task to open that shell, I would NEVER think of doing that.

    And that's the truth.
    • Urusai, on 10/12/2007, -0/+19Don't like gobbling nuts off of asphalt, maybe?
    • tizz66, on 10/12/2007, -1/+37Well, the crow can probably think of better ways, it just can't get a good grip on the hammer.
    • gd007, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3you would, when all you got to eat was that nut.
    • igraham09, on 10/12/2007, -3/+3if i was given the task of opening a walnut(or other nut)...

      i wouldn't

      i'd go make a sandwich...

      with my THUMBS
    • Jowitz, on 10/12/2007, -0/+22Something that I find even more ingenious, is how I have seen crows throw nuts into a heavy-traffic area, and trick squirrels to go after them. The squirrels get ran over, and the crows have something bigger than a nut to eat.
    • tybris, on 10/12/2007, -3/+2Slavery, the first signs of civilization.
  • scutter, on 10/12/2007, -7/+3Amazing
  • zweben, on 10/12/2007, -0/+28I always thought the birds diving in front of my car were stupid. Maybe they're smarter than I thought!
    • quazywabbit, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2depends on the bird. I have seen stupid birds that are attracted to head lights.
  • wedges, on 10/12/2007, -1/+54jesus christ, they wait for the traffic light? that's pretty incredible.
    • nazsco, on 10/12/2007, -18/+4yeah. it's called ***** good video editing skills and may require some luck too.
    • spikeyone, on 10/12/2007, -0/+16or maybe they aren't paying so much attention to the light, but to the cars stopping and the people walking
  • ChileanGoD, on 10/12/2007, -3/+26Do american Crows do this? ;)
    • mikeazorin, on 10/12/2007, -5/+46 Haven't you heard? Education is rapidly declining, even the crows are stupider.
    • titlesaysitall, on 10/12/2007, -1/+27Nah, they're too fat like the rest of us.
    • republicoftexas, on 10/12/2007, -9/+6When you top us, let me know.

      http://www.aneki.com/nobel.html
    • ronin9, on 10/12/2007, -3/+3They eat the same fast food we do.
    • trunkster, on 10/12/2007, -7/+4@republicoftexas

      And this proves that Americans like to show off and win petty prizes?
    • CollegeRuled, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7Petty Nobel Prize?! Sounds like somebody needs to go back to school.
    • Kypt, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7Meh what's the point of showing off your novel price when the winners have mostly been "imported". In my university's CSCI department most of the people that teach are all immigrants, as well as pretty much about 70% of Computer/Electronic Engineering. Middle eastern and european descent most of all. I give it to them they're incredibly smart, and that they are now citizens, yet it wasn't the "American" culture that made it that way.

      Something to think about
    • blackjack75, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2"They eat the same fast food we do."

      Joke apart, here in Switzerland they do! By the side of the lake in Lausanne there are quite a few crows, and they eat all the ***** people leave around when they eat some sandwich. You wouldn't know how crazy they get about the little bag with rests of kebab, they seem to like spicy sauce.

      I wonder how their heart is doing...
    • dizzybastard, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2@republicoftexas
      Before making a smart ass comment like your's, think twice.

      Countries with the Most Nobel Prize Winners
      Rank Country Number of Laureates
      1 United States 270 (US Population: roughly 300 million)
      2 United Kingdom 101 (UK Population: roughly 60 million)

      Seams like if the UK also had 300 million people, they would have around 500 Laureates..
    • republicoftexas, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@dizzybastard

      Nice point, but I did think about that. Why did you assume that I was making reference to the UK? I love the British and I am very aware of their intellect. However, I do find it very irritating when people start to compare countries on digg. I was just trying to make a point that America is not full of blundering idiots running back and forth looking for their television remotes. While I am aware that their are such people in this country, I also understand that the do not populate the entire land. I just think it is disrespectful for others to assume so.
  • morgrar, on 10/12/2007, -10/+3And they say birds came from dinosaurs, and dinosaurs were stupid. Maybe not? Maybe a Velociraptor from Jurassic Park really could open doors?
    • kevinmotel, on 10/12/2007, -2/+20clever girl...
    • nazsco, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3That's like saying a caveman could do calculus... but it does have a bit of truth if you think about.
    • JEmerson, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0"That's like saying a caveman could do calculus"

      Not really. Assuming we're talking about "man" as ***** sapiens, there's not much evidence for further brain development past that point. It's probable that an early human raised from birth would be, intellectually, indistinguishable from anyone else.

      A monkey doing calculus would be a bit closer to what your analogy was aiming for. There's been one hell of a lot of development and divergence between a corvid, the top of the avien brain ladder, and the dinos.
  • thatsmyaibo, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9That's nuts...no pun intended. I always heard crows were one of the smartest birds and i think this is a pretty good support of that.
    • PathDaemon, on 10/12/2007, -3/+4As soon as you say "no pun intended," we know you thought of it being a pun!
  • DoctorNo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+33I saw a similar documentry on Japanese crows that would pick change up from donation boxes at local temples and carry them to a near-by park where they would randomly deposit coins into the vending machine for pigeon food. The crows would then eat the pigeon food that came out the bottom. Quite clever.

    Same documentry showed crows placing nuts on train tracks to open them, interestingly they showed that crows from urban areas of Japan were smarter then those from the country side since there were more intellectual obstacles and less opportunities for natural sources of food.
  • LucasVB, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7God, I love crows. Amazingly smart birds.
  • trunkster, on 10/12/2007, -1/+12Only in Japan could crows be this smart.
  • everfalling, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2clever buggers, gotta love crows. i think ravens are smarter though.
  • STKD, on 10/12/2007, -4/+10I for one welcome our new avian overlords.
    Wait... this isn't slashdot? :(
    • reddevil3, on 10/12/2007, -3/+8You should be happy it's not slashdot. :)
    • kpataska, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0Funny... Digg is what /. used to be
  • Firemanjoe, on 10/12/2007, -4/+1Kinda interesting....
  • kalleanka, on 10/12/2007, -4/+1Haha, that bird is smarter than me. Not even I could come up with a smart idea to crack it on a sidewalk like that!
    • thatsmyaibo, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Yeah...because humans came up with nutcrackers...and invented the cars that are opening the nuts...
    • Murdats, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3did you come up with cars or nutcrackers? no only a few select humans do

      speaking of which, if left to their own devices im sure cultures like australian aboriginal and the native american indians would never have invented cars and the like, they had no need (they developed a relatively stable culture that didnt insist on destroying the world to feed it)
    • JEmerson, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"did you come up with cars or nutcrackers? no only a few select humans do"

      Thank you. That's one of my prime annoyances with out culture. There's this bizzare tendency to claim rights to the achievenents of others, just because we're using their crap. Every culture looks to its past as full of idiots, to some extent. But ours seems to oddly glory in it. If one hasn't invented the flying car in this time, there's little chance he'd have invented the normal care were his genes to find themselves en-flesh-ified within the past.
  • aquax, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Crows do that in California. Although I haven't seen any do the whole "crosswalk" trick.
    • blackjack75, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Which is quite stupid actually because they would reach the nuts faster by flying.

      Damn, why do I feel dirty when I use the words nut and flying in the same sentence...
  • nasalexportbeta, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1ive seen a bird ( crow) dip a cracker in a puddle of water to soften the ting. I flipped out.
  • david76, on 10/12/2007, -0/+27Here's a video of a crow making a tool:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TtmLVP0HvDg
  • jleeper, on 10/12/2007, -3/+1Very smart little fellow. I am in the middle of a big data migration project. Wonder if this guy has any migration experience!
  • 12340987, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4crow using the crosswalk was hilarious
  • scosol, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Read up on crows- they are much, *much* smarter than any other birds...
    • blackjack75, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2They say depression is a sign of inteligence. And obviously crows are depressive, or else why would they wear black all the time? I am prety sure thoses birds are emo.
  • applemaggot, on 10/12/2007, -0/+14The gals at my office have taken to feeding peanuts to the squirrel's that scurry about outside. The crows have developed 3 techniques to get fed too. One, they just wait for the squirrel to run off with a peanut, and then they swoop down and help themselves to the pile, easy enough. Two, they harass the squirrel into dropping the peanut by dive bombing, etc. Third, they watch the squirrel go off and bury the peanut, then they dive down and dig it back up immediately after the squirrel scurries back for more. This is the one I don't think the squirrel's are aware of.
  • FlapJaw, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0It's amazing to observe the way animals are adapting to our presence on Earth. The crow even used the damn crosswalk so he wouldn't get hit by vehicles. Wonder if he watched and learned when to go? I guess these crows are pretty intelligent.
  • mikedpirone, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7When I was in Long Island, NY there were birds that would grab muscles and clams then they would fly up real high and drop them on the rocks below to crack open the shells. Guess birds are smarter than most people give them credit for.
    • matt0baba, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3they do that here in Vancouver BC ( canada ) .. exept on the pier ... i was walking there and a giant clam nearly hit me on the head!
    • Murdats, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5must of thought you had a thick head
  • nepawoods, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6I've seen birds at an indoor cafeteria at Stanford University that came in and out through automatic doors. The doors opened very briefly when people approached. Tha amazing thing was that the birds would wait high up on these metal beams, and to fly through the door as it opened they would have to start their swoop down well before the door opened, as someone was approaching the door. The timing was incredible.
  • humanaut, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Aussie magpies are fairly smart. They seem to understand the road rules - when a car is hurtling towards them at 100 mph they just hop to the other side of the white line, rather than flying away. How do they know the car will stay on one side of the line?!
  • spect3r, on 10/12/2007, -8/+2http://digg.com/videos_educational/Crazy_sounding_bird

    The Lyrebird!
  • Thandor, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2Crows are smart.
  • Aud1073cH, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0Park rangers in Yosemite national park have also observed this behavior of Crows, or some similar specie of corvus, in the US.
  • McNash, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Gotta love adaptation, I'm surprised that the birds picked up on the fact that when the lights change the motion of the cars do.
    • blackjack75, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Birds are usually fast enought to move away when the cars arrive, they don't have to look at the traffic lights.
  • Hyprtime, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2It's kind of sad that a crow is better at following road crossing rules than most human pedestrians.
  • achoo5000, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4David Attenborough is a pimp
  • LeFrenzy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5can you imagine having to go through that ***** every morning just to eat breakfast?

    Impressive, Mr. Crow.
  • turbo2ltr, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I've seen a Grackle hanging out at Sonic (fast food joint) take one of those candy mints they give you and drop it from the table so little chips would crack off. They would fly down, eat the chips and then take it up to the table and drop it again.

    Smart and had the freshest breath of all the other birds.
  • aguilr, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I saw that show on TV about a year ago while waiting for my oil change at the shop. The story continued showing some birds in London, I believe, that would take the train to get across town; now that's smart!

    Anybody have a YouTube link to that?
  • HsoKinees, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1very smart creatures :S I often wondered if the crow was the most popular bird in japan, because they get used /alot/ in the Resident Evil game series :S
  • script, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0That's pretty remarkable. I wonder if they will ever figure out to push the crosswalk button or perhaps ask a passer by to do it for them...
  • dielawn, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1you guys are just NOW seeing this?
  • blueblood, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2iv seen them do it i have a wallnut tree by my house, smart little buggers
  • grooviekenn, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2What will those Japanese birds think of next?!?!
  • manatee, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Dupe

    http://www.digg.com/videos_educational/Amazing_Bird_Uses_Cars_to_Crack_Nuts

    submitted one day earlier. :)
  • johnzilla, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Pretty sweet!
  • thatrez, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0roadkill and fresh wallnut all in one....
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  • noerenic, on 08/22/2008, -0/+0http://nemt.blogsite.org Good video
  •  

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