Crows

Today, after having relinquished my cable and forced to look into alternate sources of entertainment, I wandered onto the nature section of the PBS website. I learned a little bit about crows and was fascinated by it.
Here are a few tidbits to help me recall:

• Crows live up to 20 years and care for their young ones for as many as five.
• They like to be close to each other. They are social. They have one kind of calling for the community and the family communicates in a different, much softer dialect.
• They can recognize faces and associate them as good or bad and remember a face for up to 2 years. They are great at communicating and learn from the misfortunes of fellow crows.
• They are great at using tools. They are one of the handful of creatures that make tools. Their intelligence in this respect is comparable to apes. They demonstrate capability to chain together multiple steps to accomplish a goal. In an experiment, the crow used a small stick to draw the longer stick out and used the longer stick to get the food out.
• Parrots have the biggest brain among birds; but crows prove to be more intelligent. They are able to communicate things like whom to be cautious of to their young ones, in addition to other adults.
• The nest is designed to accommodate the female. In Japan, they often use clothing hangers for building their nests. They shape it with their bodies forcing it outward to get the correct shape.
• Here is a link to the video: http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/episodes/a-murder-of-crows/introduction/5838/