Click below to listen to my 2 min. Garden Bite radio show: What’s there to crow about?
Crows, many folks find these birds annoying, yakking it up, lauding their territory, while others find a symbolism to the bird. That symbolism varies greatly throughout the world. But in practical terms, crows are pretty impressive birds.
The oldest wild crow known was 16, a crow in captivity lived to 59! Crows collaborate in extended family groups to rear their young, some are 5 generations. They have 250 unique calls to communicate among themselves. Some crows, literally, have a nest in the city and one in the country and toggle back and forth daily. Crows have been known to make and use tools.
For many Native Americans seeing a crow was (and still is!) considered good luck by many tribes. It is true that crows will eat carrion, but so do many other animals not typically associated with the dead such as bald eagles, bears, etc. In Native American folklore, the intelligence of crows is usually portrayed as their most important feature. In some tribes, the crow is conflated with the raven, a larger cousin of the crow that shares many of the same characteristics. In other tribes, Crow and Raven are distinct mythological characters.
All about birds – American Crow [The Cornell Lab of Ornithology]
Native languages crow legend
Native American crow symbolism
FAQ’s about Crows [Cornell] Find out if a flock of crows is really called a “murder of crows”…
Research also shows that they can recognize individual humans and remember them for up to 2 years. So if you’ve been visited by a crow chatting with you out in the garden, he or she may recognize you! So you might want to be nice! ?
