I was watching a small group of crows the other day that appeared to be playing tag. At first I thought they were stealing food from one another and watching them closer it appeared that when a bird was tagged he had to run down another bird and tag it. I admit that it seems more likely I was not watching what I thought I was watching but after 15 min of this it started to look unmistakable. The game took place between 2 telephone polls about 50 yards apart. The tagged bird would only tag another bird that was perched and they woud allow him to get very close before they attempted to dodge him. It looked like successfu tagging attempts were about 1 for 3. Is this possible? Is there anything about this game that coud be useful to their survival?
Crows (and corbids in general) are among the animals that have been noted to be playing just for the love of playing. I can’t get to youtube here at work, but there’s a video of crows taking turns rolling down the snowy slope of a car in the winter. Why? Because it’s fun.
They’re really smart birds, and very social.
What I thought was strange if they were in fact playing tag was how they communicated to one another that they were going to play tag, and how did they know the rules and protocal for the game?
Do crows make good pets?
As much as any large bird does.
Back in the 70s a feed store had 3 of them as mascots. Nowadays, in the USA, you can only have African Crows as pets.
I mean, do they make good fun pets? They are smart and social. Can they become tame and domesticated? So can you play with them? Can you play tag with your pet crow? I had a dog that loved to be slid across the floor on his back. Can you play with a crow like that, or anything similar? Can you teach them clever tricks? You and a buddy can play frisbee with a flying squirrel, using the squirrel for the frisbee. Can you and a buddy play catch with a crow?
Here’s a crow snowboarding - - YouTube
And here are crows who have figured out how water displacement works - Causal understanding of water displacement by a crow - YouTube
I would say on a scale of pet birds they would fall about the level of a Macaw (with Finch types being uninterested in you and Moluccan Cockatoos loving being touched) you can handle a Macaw, train them to do tricks but at any time it could bite your finger off or rip your lips off.
https://www.rightpet.com/birdgroup/corvidae has the various crow types and on their individual pages if you click “read more” it will tell you a lot more. An d each type also has “reviews” written by people who have interacted with crows more so than my 40 year old remembrance of crows in a store.
Well, a LOT of social animals play recognizable games- especially the young ones. And in many cases, the games young animals play relate to things they’ll need to do to survive.
The games kittens or tiger cubs play are essentially practice for pouncing on a prey animal.
And foals often play a game in which one will charge the others, who scatter as quickly as possible. That’s essentially practice for escaping from lions and other predators.
Eure-caw
Probably the same way little kids do. Think about it - nobody on your playground sat you down and went over the Marquess of Queensbury rules for swatting a friend and running around. You just saw some other kids having fun and joined in. I’m sure that’s exactly what the crows did. Crows and monkeys both excel at mimicry, after all.
There’s a few youtube videos of crows nipping dogs’ tails and, it at least looks like, they’re doing it for the lulz: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.
I was at a job site and a large crow showed up and would sneak up and untie our shoe laces then run. I think he must have been a pet at one time and escaped.
Actually, the tail-nipping (while they might also be just doing it for the lulz) is a really good way for them to get food. They’re scavengers, remember?
Crows are rarely seen alone, they always operate in at least pairs if not larger groups, and work as a team. So say a dog (or wolf, or cat, or eagle, or any other small-to-midsize predator) has taken down some prey and is having a fine feast of it. A pair of crows - let’s call them Laverne and Shirley - see it and decides they’ll be having that tasty lunch instead. Laverne sneaks up behind the predator and pulls its tail (or tailfeathers) - the predator is all “OMGWTF you ass!” and turns around and shoos her away - she repeats until the predator gets really fed up and chases her down, leaving the prey behind, at which point Shirley swoops in and has a nice meal. Laverne escapes easily, as the predator didn’t really want to catch her, just to drive her away from the food. When the predator returns, the meal is at least somewhat smaller, if not gone entirely, thanks to Shirley. They then either switch roles and repeat on the same meal or switch for the next tasty-but-guarded snack.
Here is a video of one doing the shoelaces bit solo, trying to get a pan the person is holding. I don’t know what it wants the pan for - maybe as the base for a nest? Or a courting-gift? But it wants it bad, and is not at all afraid of the humans.
And here they’re playing “Let’s you and him fight” with two cats, very successfully. Crows are amazing and also kind of dicks.
Maybe they’re just naturally drawn to long moving things that might be worms or caterpillars. Maybe the crow doesn’t think it’s pulling the dog’s tail, but rather he’s pulling a juicy worm out of the dog’s ass!
Watch the videos I linked to. They know exactly what they’re doing.
Now that I think about it the crow would untie our laces at lunch time. It was a distraction tactic
I keep reading the OP as, “Cows playing tag”, and the ensuing mental image gives me the giggles.