Can crows recognize individual cats? (1 Viewer)

[jurek]

I live in a neighborhood which has lots of cats roaming about. I also routinely pay attention to alarm calls of crows to see a raptor or something interesting. In recent days, I heard several times that local Crows make enormous noise, with their intense grating calls. It turned that it is always the same Siamese cat, out of many cats which are around. It would be useful for Crows to recognize individual cats, because they vary from keen hunters to couch potatoes which practically lack hunting instinct.

Apparently Crows recognize individual people, but do their recognize individual cats? Anybody noticed the same?

 

[dantheman]

I live in a neighborhood which has lots of cats roaming about. I also routinely pay attention to alarm calls of crows to see a raptor or something interesting. In recent days, I heard several times that local Crows make enormous noise, with their intense grating calls. It turned that it is always the same Siamese cat, out of many cats which are around. It would be useful for Crows to recognize individual cats, because they vary from keen hunters to couch potatoes which practically lack hunting instinct.

Apparently Crows recognize individual people, but do their recognize individual cats? Anybody noticed the same?

Don't know, but I would think so.

I would also think that as cats vary so much (eg Siamese - Tabby - Black Cat etc) the differences are as noticeably as much as some individual mammal species (eg Stoat - Rabbit - Hedgehog) superficially at the very least. And so a threatening, or particularly threatening individual would be recognisable. The test would be a range of eg Tabby (tortoishell patterned) or other same cats with a range of behaviours in the same vicinity perhaps ...

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[Jeff51]

According to Sibley's wonderful book, What It's like to be a Bird, "Crows are able to recognize us by our faces, and they associate each person with good or bad experiences." so meows sense to me that crows would recognize individual cats, esp siamese cats. they're unforgetable.

 

[Jon Turner]

Some banders (ringers on this side of the pond) were banding on the campus of one of the American Universities. I don't remember the precise details but they wore Ronald Reagan masks which perturbed the local Crow population, bringing on aggressive behaviour from the Crows. I forget the timescale but some 10 years later, they returned with the Reagan masks and the Crows went berserk!

 

[KC Foggin]

Some banders (ringers on this side of the pond) were banding on the campus of one of the American Universities. I don't remember the precise details but they wore Ronald Reagan masks which perturbed the local Crow population, bringing on aggressive behaviour from the Crows. I forget the timescale but some 10 years later, they returned with the Reagan masks and the Crows went berserk!

How interesting Jon!

 

[pianoman]

According to Sibley's wonderful book, What It's like to be a Bird, "Crows are able to recognize us by our faces, and they associate each person with good or bad experiences." so meows sense to me that crows would recognize individual cats, esp siamese cats. they're unforgetable.

Couldn't help smiling at the inadvertently appropriate autocorrection!

 

[LarryMegahey]

I think other birds might do as well. I (unfortunately) have two cats, one of which is a fierce hunter. The other is completely safe, likes to smell the flowers and maybe chase a butterfly or two, but has never killed anything in his life. Now, when the first goes out in the garden, the local birds create a rumpus. But when the other one goes out, they just ignore him - I've seen blackbirds continue looking for worms within a few centimetres from him.
My theory is that either the birds recognise individual cats, and know which ones to look out for, or there is something in the cat's body language that tells them this.