crows and ravens have demostrated a knowledge of ‘fairness’ – and demand equal treatment. researchers did an ‘inequity test’ on the birds. some birds received cheese, a high value treat, and others received a piece of grape, which was not desirable. those who received the grape started refusing to accept it. the researchers then performed an ‘effort control’ test. some birds were given a piece of cheese with nothing required of them. other birds could choose from cheese or a grape – but had to exchange a token for them. again, the birds that were being treated unfairly refused to cooperate.
Ah yes, the ubiquitous “HERE IS MY FACE PUT FOOD IN IT I DON’T CARE IF I’M SUPPOSED TO BE FIGURING IT OUT MYSELF” stage of fledgeling birds. Heralded by loud babies and frazzled-looking parents.
I can 100% guarantee you that bird is doing this on purpose. It may not have initially known what a windshield wiper does, but it knows now, and it is enjoying that.
It’s actually impossible to measure how many fucks a corvid give because there is no device sensitive enough to register such a tiny amount.
science/animal side of tumblr… explain to me the birb thing
Tail Pulling is a behavior noted in many corvids. The practical application is to create a distraction that will allow the birb to make off with the target’s food. Imagine being in the lunch room and a large fellow has a Twinkie you covet. You can’t just take it from him because he’ll defend his Twinkie. But if you thwap him on the back of his neck and then dash around to snag the Twinkie while he investigates, you stand a decent chance of enjoying spongey goodness. This is basically that in birb form.
Except corvids don’t only do this as a distraction. Sometimes they seem to just being doing it to mess with other animals/birbs. But to use my lunch room analogy, there are times you might thwap someone sneakily on the back of the neck just for amusement. Primates exhibit behavior that appears to be just be annoying other animals for amusement. Given how intelligent crows are, its not unlikely that this is a manifestation of an innate desire to just fuck with someone else for the fun of it. Such as this from the link above:
THANK YOU FOR THE BIRB KNOWLEDGE
BECAUSE IT IS FUN
This speaks to me on a molecular level.
birbs just wanna have fun
Sorry to hijack a little, but to put it bluntly, corvids are also pretty BALSY. They are more than prepared to harass other huge birds of prey which could deal them a lot of damage. There’s plenty of cases of corvids ‘riding’ other birds as well. It’s often to harass the larger bird out of the area, but as @red3blog said, they quite often (in layman’s terms) enjoy fucking shit up for fun.
‘Where the hell is the seatbelt on this thing?’
I mean they deserve a medal for having such huge bird balls imo
BettSplendens Tumblr Evac 