In the Company of Crows and Ravens

  • John R. Marzluff &
  • Tony Angell
Yale University Press: 2005. 408 pp. $30, £18.95 0300100760 | ISBN: 0-300-10076-0

Crows: Encounters with the Wise Guys of the Avian World

  • Candace Savage
Greystone Books: 2005. 120 pp. $20, Can$27 1553651065 | ISBN: 1-553-65106-5

Konrad Lorenz claimed that a tame crow called Hansl, returning after a long absence with a broken digit, said the German equivalent of “Got him in a blooming trap!”, and so, by repeating the words of its captor, informed Lorenz how the injury had occurred. Today we would see this as an unjustified claim of the use of referential language and declarative autobiographical memory. This striking example of projective anthropomorphism is not unusual when dealing with crows, either in popular culture or in the scientific literature. People who live around crows, ravens or other corvids often see them as exceptional among animals, possessing qualities of cunning, reasoning, deception and, frequently, magic.

I can think of no better way of becoming immersed in this phenomenon — and enjoying the experience — than that provided by these two beautiful books. Both have been written by people who know and love these animals, and who use every opportunity to introduce, in lucid but accessible language, up-to-date ideas from behavioural ecology and evolutionary biology. Both are beautifully illustrated and produced, and this adds to the pleasure of sailing easily through them. Indeed, they are as gripping and difficult to put down as any good work of fiction. They mix scientific research with fables, poems and mythical stories ranging from Scandinavia to Mexico and Australia. The ground they cover overlaps to some extent, but there is sufficient extra material in each to make it worthwhile to buy both, as they differ in approach, message and content.

In the Company of Crows and Ravens is full of original illustrations by Tony Angell, and delves into the original research published over many years by John Marzluff. Marzluff and Angell put forward the notion of cultural coevolution, and they suggest that corvids are the clearest example of a culturally coevolved wild organism. They even hypothesize that the very existence of human culture as we know it may have been influenced by corvids. They write, for instance: “Ravens scavenged from large animal kills in the Pleistocene and quickly learned to exploit the foods gathered by early human hunters and fishers. Fending off scavengers may have favored people with a culture of living in groups.” By referring to many published studies, ranging from these ancient interactions to the present-day association between crows and the agricultural and urban environment, Marzluff and Angell show how the destinies of humans and corvids have been intertwined and mutually influential.

What a pity, then, that the authors were unable to resist the charm of their subjects and have on occasion fallen to what might be called ‘corvidean exceptionalism’. Not only are some anecdotal observations used to generalize concepts beyond what can reasonably be justified, but, in a few cases, the authors seem to have indulged in a suspension of disbelief that is alarming in a book popularizing a scientific matter. In an embarrassing passage we are told: “Tony Angell recalls vividly how the spirit of a good friend seemed to manifest itself in a crow.” It seems that an unknown crow appeared and behaved in an extraordinary fashion for two days until Angell realized the crow's similarity to a friend who lived far away and had been ill. Needless to say, Angell later learned that his friend had died the day the crow arrived. They then ask people to report similar experiences. Do not be discouraged, however, as this is the worst such transgression in the book, and it should not obscure the value of the rest. Perhaps you should skip that page.

Candace Savage's Crows is a beautifully crafted celebration of these birds, and places a greater emphasis on the author's and other people's artistic and emotional perception than on the fostering of a specific hypothesis. But she too uses every opportunity to introduce sound evolutionary and ecological concepts, including good descriptions of recent research on crow communication, breeding biology and, to a lesser extent, ecology.

Corvids are without doubt extremely interesting creatures, and research on corvid behaviour is enjoying an unprecedented boom. This is to be celebrated because the mapping of minds that are so different to the better-known minds of mammals may help us think more clearly about the conditions that promote the evolution of advanced cognition. Corvid research may ultimately help in explaining why the primates, which perhaps deserve to be called featherless corvids, have experienced such rapid and differentiated cognitive evolution. Whatever you read, however, remember that crows are just birds, after all.