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Well I
suspect they can count at least a bit. The question is about whether they can
remember numbers. It is well known about people entering a hide and then people
leaving that birds' ability to do subtraction exists but is limited. So the
method is used for many birds. However taking this story on face value, there is
a far easier explanation, that has nothing to do with numbers or gender or
other attributes of people entering this hide. This relates to: Everybody waited a long time but at
last the crow decided it was safe because the bird, even if it could
count and even if it could remember numbers, is going to respond to the passage
of time. Either it forgets the number, or decides it has not seen a problem for
a sufficient time and that it decides things are OK. Any thing that does
not respond to the passage of time is never going to do anything.
Similar thing, if you disturb an Echidna, it will dig itself into the
ground. If you stay there and don't bother it any more, after a few minutes it
will look out again then move along. The period of time that they will stay
hunkered down is fairly consistent.
To be
repetitive, assuming the below story is Australian, and given the solitary
habits mentioned, it was probably Australian Ravens (the common species in
Canberra), not Crows (in the narrow sense). Crows have never been recorded in
Canberra and do not normally harm lambs (HANZAB mentions "sometimes attack,
weak, starving or stillborn lambs"). I assume they would eat placentas
also.
Philip
To all the crow
enthusiasts,
My grandfather insisted that crows could count to 5.
There was a particularly wily old crow which perched all day in a tall
gumtree near his lambing paddock, causing havoc with the newborn lambs. It
knew what traps were, perched on them at first but after long investigation
never entered them.
It knew also
what guns were and would not let anyone with a gun anywhere within range.
Grandfather built a small hide in the lambing paddock and took his gun with him
into it. The crow stayed at a distance. So Grandfather got my dad to walk with
him to the hide and then walk away leaving him there. The crow stayed at a
distance, eying them but partly concealed on a high branch of the gumtree on the
far side of the paddock.
Not to be
outwitted, Grandfather got my uncle as well and the three of them walked to the
hide and then two left, leaving Grandfather there with the gun. The crow
remained concealed, just occasionally peeping around the branch of the tree. So
Grandfather sent Dad on his horse to get the next-door neighbour. He came and
the the four of them walked to the hide. When the three departed the crow
remained stubbornly in the tree. Dad wanted to get Grandma but Grandfather
reckoned the crow could tell a woman from a man. So the next-door neighbour got
his labourer.
The five of them
walked to the hide, squeezed in, waited a minute, and then the four of them left
Grandfather there. Everybody waited a long time but at last the crow decided it
was safe and flew down to the fence near the new-born lambs. And there
Grandfather shot it. He wore five of its tail feathers in his hat for the rest
of his life.
So there you
have it, crows can count to 5…or wait a minute, is that actually only
4…?
Cheers
John
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