The common American Crow is a very polarizing bird. There are still a few of us that can appreciate the crow as a very fascinating creature. However, most people dislike or even hate crows.

There are all kinds of stories bantered about of how crows eat the eggs of other, more valuable birds or band together to kill small animals. In fact, in medieval times, when crows were seen hoping amongst the bodies of those killed on the battlefield, a group of crows were colorfully named as a “murder” of crows.

When I began researching for the podcast, Dirty Crows, part of The Nature Photography Podcast series, I found out quite a few very interesting stories about crows. These birds are highly intelligent and you just can’t hate a bird when it’s this smart.

Here are five reasons NOT to hate crows.

1. Crows Value Family

Crows are known to mate for life. While the mating pair will often gather in large groups, when it comes to mating season, the same two crows get back together for their parental duties.

The crow’s family order is also something to admired. It has been studied that juvenile crows, stick around and help at the family nest. These young birds will stay and protect the nest from predators, bring food back to mom and dad and even help feed their younger siblings in the nest. These juvenile birds don’t just do this for one season, they stick around and help out at the nest for up to five years!

With a crow’s lifespan of only seven to eight years, that is more than half its young life, tending to the family first.

2. Crows Have Big Brains

Most people think of the term bird brain to illustrate how stupid someone can be. But in the crow’s case the brain is quite large. When you consider the brain to body ratio, the crow’s brain is amazingly large. While coming in at only; point two ounces, the ratio to body weight is 2.7 percent of the entire bird. In contrast, the human brain is only about 1.9 percent in the brain to body ratio. So, we can extrapolate from that fact, that crow are smarter than some humans.

Researchers have found that the crow’s brain is on par with the great apes. In some circles the crow is called “feathered apes”. Even having more capabilities than the apes when it comes to cognitive reasoning.

Cognitive reasoning is measured by things like sustained attention, speed of information processing, working memory and pattern recognition.

3. The Fables Are True

There is a common Aesop’s Fable called; The Crow and the Pitcher.

This story tells of a thirsty crow that comes across a pitcher of water that is just too low to drink. The crow figures out that if it starts dropping pebbles one-by-one, into the pitcher, the water level will slowly rise and enable the crow to quench his thirst.

As it turns out, this was indeed the case and the fable is true. Scientists employed a comparable on test crows. They did a test with a floating worm in a pitcher of water. The opening was too narrow so the crow could not get it’s beak on the worm. The crow thought it through and went out and found pebbles and filled the pitcher with those pebbles to raise the water level to get at the worm. The test crows also knew enough to be even more effective by bringing larger pebbles to drop into the pitcher to get the task done even faster.

4. Crows Are Clever

In California, crows have been observed watching traffic signals to help them prepare a meal.

When crows came across some tasty walnuts, they were seen flying down and placing the hard-shelled walnut onto the asphalt of city intersections. Then, they would wait for cars to roll over the nut, crushing it to expose the meaty center.

How did the crows avoid getting run over, you ask? Well, they would watch the lights and only go down to pick up or drop off a nut when the light was red. They’d show patience and wait a complete traffic light cycle and only then pick up their crushed walnuts.

5. Crows Have Great Memories

A study a team from the University of Washington did some tests on their local crows. The idea was to see how well crows could identify human faces.

The group went out and bought some Halloween masks. One was a caveman mask and another was a mask of, at the time, Vice president Dick Cheney. The idea was that the caveman mask would be the test and the Dick Cheney mask was for control status. So, it had nothing to do with political preference.

At five different locations, the caveman masks were worn when trapping and banding some of the wild crows. Crows don’t go for that capturing business.

When they were being released, the crows squawked and scolded the caveman looking human. Even other crows nearby joined in the ruckus cawing and dive bombing the caveman.

Over several years, the masks were worn on casual strolls through those areas and were always greeted with harassing calls and swooping behaviors to the caveman and the Dick Cheney mask was generally ignored… well at least by the crows.

The trapping and tagging of the crows were only done the first few times, so scientists were amazed that the swooping and angry calls continued years later when someone appeared with the caveman mask.

What is really amazing, is that some birds where not even alive when the study started. But they still scolded the mask wearer anyway. The “Attack the Mask” was clearly passed on to younger birds and so the grudge was passed on through generations.

Knowing all this about crows, you can’t hate crows. They are too smart, too clever and too fun to watch and enjoy.