Hm. An essay on the brains of crows. Yeah.
A few years ago, my mother and I were eating lunch at La Madeleine in Houston, out on the patio. (Mmmmm, French bistro food.) The patio was almost empty, since it was about 2pm. We were sitting at one end, and at the other end, on an otherwise empty table, there were these two crows.
The crows were picking through the little box of sugar packets on the table. And without fail, every time they picked up a pink packet (saccharin) or a blue packet (aspartame), they would toss it over their shoulders onto the ground without a second thought. It was like watching a tiny pastel blizzard, these little packets flying everywhere, as fast as a pair of hungry crows could throw them over their shoulders. If crows have shoulders. Anyway.
But if they picked up a white packet (sugar) or a tan packet (raw sugar), they'd keep it and fly off to the roof, stash it somewhere, and come back for more. And the blizzard would begin again, as they quietly worked their way from table to table.
Of course we didn't chase them off, or go tell the employees. We were too busy eating and laughing our fool heads off.
They'd learned, somewhere along the way, that white and tan packets taste GOOD, and pink and blue packets taste BAD. I don't know whether crows can see in color, but I'm almost positive it had something to do with either the color or the shade of gray that color translates to.
Only humans are dumb enough to ingest potentially harmful chemicals instead of more-or-less-natural benign sugar. But that's another rant entirely.
A couple of months ago, when I was in Houston, my mother and I were having lunch in the outdoor cafe at the Museum of Fine Arts: Houston. And when I picked up the sugar to add some to my coffee, we noticed that, while the saccharin and the aspartame were in little packets in a little china box, the sugar was loose in one of those big canister dispensers.
Why the canister instead of matching sugar packets, which are easier to take care of and replace? Why, crows, of course. Smart crows!
The moment we realized this, Mom and I started laughing our fool heads off again, startling the oh-so-fabulous overdressed hip Houston art crowd with their oh-so-fabulous art-museum lunches.
Screw 'em. Let 'em eat crow.
...
Ouch.
Replies: add your comment: currently 5 comments
Well, I would think that if crows were color blind, they could tell that the colored packets were grey, while the white ones were, well, white.
Posted by Shinji @ 06/07/2001 10:49 AM EST
An interesting observation. These crows seem to be more intelligent than they've been letting on. Perhaps they're in cahoots with the Canada Geese...??
Posted by DarkMoon @ 06/07/2001 10:48 PM EST
Ah, but what would the *crows* get out of it? I didn't think that the crows were loyal to the Land of the Maple Leaf...
Posted by Nathan @ 06/08/2001 05:57 AM EST
The crows are playing the geese for fools, and when they(Canadian Geese) have world domination, the crows stap in and take over.
Posted by Shinji @ 06/08/2001 09:02 AM EST
*sniffle* I'm so proud. I've trained you guys well...
Posted by Mooncalf @ 06/09/2001 09:04 PM EST
