# Could a Crow Have Helped Me Find My Golf Ball? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 9, 2008, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-a-crow-have-helped-me-find-my-golf-ball/455833 "2008-07-09T15:02:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Leaffan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leaffan/32/299_2.png) [@Leaffan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaffan)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2008, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-a-crow-have-helped-me-find-my-golf-ball/455833/1 "2008-07-09T15:02:09Z")
This thread could go in many places, but let me start here in Great Debates because it’s surely debatable. last night I sliced my tee shot over a tree line and into an open area. As I rounded the end of the tree line a crow was in a tree looking right at me. When I looked up at it, it flew to another tree about 40 yards away. I started looking for my ball in the rough and wasn’t having much luck. Two of my foursome came over to help and we were just about to give up when I noticed the crow was still at the top of the tree and was still looking right at me. “Hmmmm? I thought to myself. I wonder if that crow is trying to tell me something?” So, I walked to the base of the tree that the crow was perched in, and holy shit if my ball wasn’t right there in the long grass under the tree! As soon as I said “got it!” the crow flew away! Now, I know crows are intelligent. And it may be possible that this one clued into the fact that the hairless apes were whacking these hard “eggs” and then walking to them, and then whacking them again. Could the crow have genuinely been trying to help me, or was it a very weird coincidence? ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2008, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-a-crow-have-helped-me-find-my-golf-ball/455833/2 "2008-07-09T15:04:45Z")
Crows are notorious for taking food from golf carts when golfers aren’t looking. It could be that the crow had learned to follow a recently hit golf ball and that food would be available nearby. ---
**Author:** ![nd\_n8](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/439d5e/32.png) [@nd\_n8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nd_n8)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2008, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-a-crow-have-helped-me-find-my-golf-ball/455833/3 "2008-07-09T15:10:58Z")
If the crow were really intelligent he would have snatched up your ball and dropped it in the short grass with a nice line to the pin, then came back to the cart to extort some hush pretzels out of you. Failure on your part to come up off of the pretzels will result in your next tee shot that lands on a green stairing down an easy eagle “mysteriously” splashing into the nearest water 30 seconds later. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2008, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-a-crow-have-helped-me-find-my-golf-ball/455833/4 "2008-07-09T15:24:19Z")
Dunno. Corvids are smart birds, generally, but lets examine a few of the elements: > [@](#): > > As I rounded the end of the tree line a crow was in a tree looking right at me. Can you actually tell it was looking at you? It’s fairly easy to detect the gaze-direction of another human, but a bird? not so much. Many birds are looking straight at you when they point their beak away (due to the placement of the eyes). > [@](#): > > When I looked up at it, it flew to another tree about 40 yards away I mean, maybe it _was_ looking at you. Keeping an eye on potential threats, then flying away when the big animal looks at you is pretty normal evasive behaviour in wild birds. > [@](#): > > …I noticed the crow was still at the top of the tree and was still looking right at me. still looking at you, but now from higher up in a tree that was initially further away from you? That sounds again like _monitor and evade the potential predator_. > [@](#): > > As soon as I said “got it!” the crow flew away! Did you happen to say that _a bit loud_? Sudden noise from a nearby potential predator - fly away. Dunno. Sounds like coincidence melded with misunderstanding of the crow’s normal responses to your presence and behaviour, to me, but I wasn’t there - so maybe there were subtleties that don’t come across well in writing. Crows are smart birds, but I can’t think of a very straightforward reason why one would be motivated to help you find a golf ball. ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2008, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-a-crow-have-helped-me-find-my-golf-ball/455833/5 "2008-07-09T15:27:10Z")
Congratualations, you just had your vision quest. If you had been smoking something, it might have been a little more profound. Too late. -FrL- ---
**Author:** ![Aholibah](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e0b2c6/32.png) [@Aholibah](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aholibah)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2008, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-a-crow-have-helped-me-find-my-golf-ball/455833/6 "2008-07-09T15:28:34Z")
OK, I’m probably MPSIMSing here, but… Several years ago, my cat got out of our apartment while I was in the midst of packing up my car for a week’s vacation. I wasn’t aware of the escape until the day after I left, when the cat-sitter called to tell me she couldn’t find him anywhere. I turned around and drove back home and started searching the area immediately around the apartment building, but wasn’t having any luck. So I’m walking around calling the cat’s name, knocking on doors, asking neighbors if they’ve seen him, and I decided I’d circle the block on foot and check for little furry bodies in the street. As I’m walking through the parking lot calling the cat’s name, I get a response, but it’s not a plaintive meow. It’s the chattering of squirrel up in a tree in a yard that borders on the lot. I ignore the squirrel, call the cat again, and the squirrel answers again. This time, my eye actually travels from the squirrel down the trunk of the tree to the ground below, where I see my little cat huddled amongst the tree roots, perfectly fine but freaked out. So I don’t know about the crow and the golf ball, but a squirrel helped me find my cat. ---
**Author:** ![An\_Arky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/87869e/32.png) [@An\_Arky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Arky)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2008, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-a-crow-have-helped-me-find-my-golf-ball/455833/7 "2008-07-09T16:06:48Z")
I don’t know; crows are pretty smart. However, I’ve heard somewhere that it’s very bad luck to follow a crow. Did your game suck after that? ---
**Author:** ![Leaffan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leaffan/32/299_2.png) [@Leaffan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaffan)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2008, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-a-crow-have-helped-me-find-my-golf-ball/455833/8 "2008-07-09T16:18:08Z")
[QUOTE=An Arky] I don’t know; crows are pretty smart. However, I’ve heard somewhere that it’s very bad luck to follow a crow. Did your game suck after that? [/QUOTE] Oh God yes. But it sucked before that too. (Hence the slice.) ---
**Author:** ![Kalhoun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/3bc359/32.png) [@Kalhoun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kalhoun)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2008, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-a-crow-have-helped-me-find-my-golf-ball/455833/9 "2008-07-09T16:21:50Z")
No answer for your question, but I just dropped in to say that I call my husband The Crow because he finds something shiney on the ground nearly every time we go out. He puts it in his pocket and adds it to his nuts and bolts drawers or what have you. I always say, “ooooh! Shiney! Good little crow!” That’s all I got. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2008, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-a-crow-have-helped-me-find-my-golf-ball/455833/10 "2008-07-09T16:33:48Z")
Of course coincidence is one explanation. Here’s another: 1. The crow saw something go flying through the trees. It was curious and went to investigate. 2. WHen it got closer, it saw what looked like an egg on the ground nearby. It was considering flying down to investigate further (and possibly get a tasty meal), but there were people wandering nearby and giving it the hairy eyeball. It watched the people warily, hoping they would leave. 3. Instead, one of the people came right up to the egg, took it, and shouted something. Worried about the person and realizing its prize was lost, the crow flew away. Nothing I’ve heard about crows makes me think they’re particularly interested in helping out humans; they’re much less altruistic to us than we are to them (which isn’t very much to begin with). The crow’s behavior was motivated, sure, but almost certainly not by altruism. There’s a great story in a book about ravens about a woman who was hiking, and a raven kept flying above her and squawking. Finally, realizing it was squawking a warning, she turned around to see a mountain lion was stalking her. She was able to scare the mountain lion off, and was deeply moved by the raven’s aid. Later, though, she talked with a wildlife biologist, who explained that the raven wasn’t trying to help **her** : it was trying to help **the mountain lion**. After all, if the mountain lion successfully brought down some prey, the raven would be able to feast on the remains. It was doing what corvids often do for large predators–scouting ahead, finding a prey species, and squawking to alert the predator to the prey’s presence. Daniel ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2008, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-a-crow-have-helped-me-find-my-golf-ball/455833/11 "2008-07-09T17:39:22Z")
[This guy](http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/joshua_klein_on_the_intelligence_of_crows.html) built a crow vending machine. Eventually taught them to drop coins in the machine for a treat. Once he stopped providing the crows with coins (or coin-like objects) the crows went and found real coins and brought them back to get their treats. They are very clever. (other cute anecdotes on crow intelligence in the video too) ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2008, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-a-crow-have-helped-me-find-my-golf-ball/455833/12 "2008-07-09T22:31:09Z")
[QUOTE=Whack-a-Mole] [This guy](http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/joshua_klein_on_the_intelligence_of_crows.html) built a crow vending machine. [/QUOTE] That’s nothing - I got toucans out of the vending machine at work the other day. (Coke and Sprite).