The crows in the back yard make a sound like ‘lololol’. This video shows a crow making a similar sound, but more like ‘lolol’ instead of ‘lololol’.
Any idea of the meaning of this call?
Reported for title typo fix.
Moderator Note
Fixed.
Thanks!
Maybe it is a NoWA dialect?
It sounds more like ohoho, to me. It doesn’t sound like an alarm. Maybe he’s just singing.
Sounds like a bonding or mating call–they also make an odd crickety sound that’s a happy noise to connect to other crows in the area, kind of a “I’m fine, how you?” noise. Or it could be something that particular crow picked up because some of them are crazy good imitators.
That odd crickety sound reminds me of the Predator noise. It creeps me out when I hear them do that up in a tree behind me.
It is rather Predator sounding, isn’t it? Gotta love the crows.
For those who aren’t familiar with this crickety noise–check the third call down, the one from Oregon, that’s what I’m on about.
At most of the Walmart parking lots I’ve been to, the crows have a slight variation of that call that sounds like a car with a bad CV joint/bad brakes turning down an aisle.
I always hear a call that sorta sounds like “luckluckluck”.
Our Sonic crows will cluck at you to throw them a French fry. They must have high cholesterol. The call sounds like a long cawww-ca ca.
Wow. I’ve never heard that. Very cool.
Hopeful Crow might have an idea about it. Isn’t he a corvid fan?
Crows do sound like they’re laughing; to me they sound like W.C. Fields.
I use to have a crow in my neighborhood that sounded like a cat yowling. The first time I heard it I tried to follow it to see if it was a cat. About a year after I first heard the noise I finally saw the crow making the noise. Haven’t heard it in a couple years now.
Don’t know if it’s of interest, but when I played those crow calls my conure zoomed off and took cover. Feel a bit bad about that but how would I have known ahead of time?
Well, there you go. The bird knows.
Just to be clear: I’m asking about the ‘lololol’ sound similar to the one in the video in the OP.
I’ve never heard a crow make the sound in the OP, which is what leads me to think it’s something that particular crow learned to do. Crows are excellent mimics, and when raised in captivity have been known to acquire extensive vocabularies. I combed through a bunch of sites that have recordings of various bird calls and didn’t find anything like that one.
I have listened to the OP several times. You know what it reminds me of? A car beeper when someone is checking their door lock.