JTweedie
Well-known member
For the last two Wednesdays I've been at the University of Edinburgh's Holyrood Campus.
On my first visit I was really early so I sat in the internal courtyard and there was a carrion crow that walked towards me making strange little vocalisations.
Yesterday the same bird was there but it was up on the roof of an adjacent building and making the same vocalisations.
The sounds were typically crow-like, but they were quite low and of a continuous nature. I've heard some magpies making a similar vocalisation with other magpies but there were no other crows around and it did seem to be aimed at people.
I got the impression that this was a bird that's used to being fed by people and that the vocalisations might have been formed as a way of communicating with or appealing to, people. I don't want to anthropomorphise as obviously it's a crow being a crow, but do you think an intelligent bird like this could adapt its behaviour like this in response to people specifically?
On my first visit I was really early so I sat in the internal courtyard and there was a carrion crow that walked towards me making strange little vocalisations.
Yesterday the same bird was there but it was up on the roof of an adjacent building and making the same vocalisations.
The sounds were typically crow-like, but they were quite low and of a continuous nature. I've heard some magpies making a similar vocalisation with other magpies but there were no other crows around and it did seem to be aimed at people.
I got the impression that this was a bird that's used to being fed by people and that the vocalisations might have been formed as a way of communicating with or appealing to, people. I don't want to anthropomorphise as obviously it's a crow being a crow, but do you think an intelligent bird like this could adapt its behaviour like this in response to people specifically?
