OT: Bird Brain

Wow, Tony Blair in action

martin

Quoth the raven: "quarter more".

Now if only you could train the birds to take the money to you!

It was Fredericksburg, VA not Frederick, MD. It is a good idea to check Snopes before posting anything of this nature. DcH

Add these to your collection

You should see the doco film of crows in Indonesia. First they learned to drop nuts onto roads to break them - roads are nice big targets compared to rocks in the forest. Then they learned that the traffic would break the nuts for them, and they only had to stand alonside the road, throw the nut out, and pick up the pieces. But that was dangerous, they could get run over. So they learned to do it at pedestrian crossings. Throw the nut out, get it broken by the traffic, then wait for the lights to change, and retrieve the pieces in safety. Cant find a ref for the video, but it was shown a year or so ago.

See if you can find it. I am starting a collection. Here is all of it so far:

Those crows certainly aren't daft. Here in the UK you'll often find them by the side of busy roads waiting for some roadkill.

Graham

So after your message I tried visiting Snopes.com. How the heck did you find that information? I found nothing related. If I had stopped by Snopes (as suggested) it would not have helped. Is there some secret search that works? Do you have to be a member to get results?

Any sort of elaboration would be good, but a more detailed description of how this corrected factoid was found may be illuminating.

So? They learned that by watching lawyers chase ambulances.

Crows are pretty smart. While most birds will take advantage of roadkill, they usually scatter at the sight of an oncoming car. Crows, on the other hand, seem to understand what the car is up to. Rather than panic and fly away, they just walk over to the road side (sometimes just clear of the path of traffic) and then walk back when the car has passed.

We also have bald eagles that wait for roadkill....much to the consternation of the environmentalists. The greenies have spent years convincing the public that any human presence scares away wildlife. Meanwhile, the eagles are happily sitting by the interstate, waiting for squirrels to get clobbered.

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Around here we have buzzards. Dumb as stumps. Slow to respond to oncoming cars.

I hit one once at about 80MPH... he didn't lift off until I was almost on top of him... just cleared the hood and hit the windshield.

I covered my face with my arm, fearing a broken windshield. But it didn't break.

Looked in the rear-view mirror and saw only falling feathers ;-)

...Jim Thompson

Wrongly Attempting Independent Thought, Jim Thompson Sputtered and Spewed:

Nailed a vulture at nearly 90 once myself

Yeah, I remember the cloud of feathers was pretty satisfying

That, and the sharp *SNAP* of a hundred bones fracturing at once

Stupid bird

N.S.N.S.

Found a reference to the video in

The video was one of the David Attenborough series " The Life of Birds ". Probably number 3, if the title is any indication. And the country was Japan, not Indonesia.

Yeah, but are they good eatin'? ;-)

Cheers! Rich

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I had the misfortune to hit a swan ( or might have been a goose ) on a motorway at night a couple of years ago. Made a huge thump Both the radiator and heat exchanger for the a/c were damaged. I was lucky to get to my destination before the engine overheated in fact.

Only evidence of the bird was one white feather I found trapped in the bodywork later.

Graham

by the

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exchanger

later.

My oldest daughter hit a deer on US95 between Yuma and Quartzsite. Totaled the car, but she wasn't hurt.

Years ago I hit a coyote in my '77 280Z... went partially under the front end taking out the radiator and the A/C heat exchanger :-(

...Jim Thompson

... snip ...

Around here (Maine) deer bashing is expensive, but unlikely to be fatal (apart from the deer). Moose bashing is another thing entirely.