HoodedCrow-CreativeCommons licensed by foxypar4 (JohnHaslam)-some rights reserved
This is so amazing I had to interrupt my So Texas series to share this video of a crow in Russia that appears to be snowboarding down a snowy roof, using a jar lid as it’s ‘snowboard’. In the video the crow uses it’s beak to pick up the jar lid and flies back up to the top of the roof then surfs back down again. Before it’s last trip down the roof it tries to go down a section of roof where the snow has melted and it doesn’t slide, so it picks up the jar lid and slides down a snowy side of the roof.
This video was taken by a Russian family whom you can hear talking in the background as they watch this amazing behavior. The video was posted on the ‘Russia Today News‘ website.
Check it out:
The crow in the video is a Hooded Crow, a Eurasian species (birds found on the continent of Europe and Asia). More photos of this species can be seen here. Crows are members of the corvid family which also includes ravens, magpies and jays. This family of birds is well known to be very intelligent. A BBC article describes some of the scientific research on them and notes that this family of birds “has astonished scientists with extraordinary feats of memory, an ability to employ complex social reasoning and, perhaps most strikingly, a remarkable aptitude for crafting and using tools.”
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Hi Seeta,
Loved the crowboarding video! Thanks for sharing.
Have never doubted the intellegence of these remarkable birds!!
Deborah, you are most welcome-I truly enjoy sharing about birds and nature. I bet many of us have seen examples of the intelligence of the corvid family of birds. Your comment brought to mind watching a few Black-billed Magpies tease a dog so that other members of the magpie flock could get to the dog food. They are smart cookies
We are leading most of the other internet sites with this video as a number of facebook sites have now posted it. I shared this on the National Wildlife Federation facebook page yesterday and today they messaged: ” Great story! We blogged about it here, too! http://blog.nwf.org/2012/01/crowboarding/” Their post includes a link to an article on their website about crows for those interested in learning more about this species.
Several years ago, I watched several crows taking turns repeatedly skiing down one of those concrete downspouts outside a building, it was frozen and about 10 degrees outside. I had to stop and watch for awhile, it still makes me smile! They are so intelligent, and they absolutely were having fun!
Brenda-thanks for sharing. I suspect that there are many more instances of crows, other members of the corvid family or other bird families, engaged in what can only be considered as ‘fun’ activities. I hope more people will share their experiences and wish that more would document such behaviors on video like the one above. There is so much that biologists do not know about birds and videos (with date and location) can be helpful documentation to increase our understanding.
That was so cute, it seems like ski equipment manufactures should also create ski equipment for the birds who also wants to try skiing LOL!!
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