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OF CROWS AND SHERDS

A large and well-funded archaeological excavation was housed in the Ganei Shulamit hotel in Ashkelon, Israel. In the back of the hotel was a large area, roped off, called the "pottery compound." Here all of the potsherds that had been found in the excavation were washed and read, as to date and diagnostic value. In order to make the washing easier, they were soaked for a day, and in the afternoon a group of volunteers would wash them to the ringing chords of Beethoven's ninth symphony. The pottery washers were puzzled by disintegrating pieces of bread that they found in the water, in which the potsherds had been soaked. The pottery conservator and the pottery expert got together and decided to solve the mystery. Keeping an eye on the pails in which the sherds were soaking, they watched how a flock of crows flew from the dumpster, in which they had found stale and hard pieces of bread discarded by the hotel, alighted on the pails and dunked the bread in the water, making it more edible. The pottery expert brooked no such nonsense. She immediately and repeatedly chased away the crows.

The crows sat on the trees that shaded the pottery compound and watched what was happening below. They saw that the pottery expert was greatly concerned with the sherds that were lying all about, so they swooped down to the table on which they lay, picked one up in their bill, flew five-hundred yards toward the sea and dropped the sherd. Then they came back to do the same thing again, under the hysterical cries of the pottery expert. Other crows watched the pottery conservator. He was working with a pile of sherds which he carefully fitted together like a huge puzzle, building large jars and jugs, and more delicate vessels like bowls and flasks. While one group of crows was carrying off single sherds, another group swooped down on the just restored vessels and pecked at them, so that they fell down in a heap.

What goes on in the mind of a bird that seizes up two human beings, knows them by their acts to be enemies, and consequently takes logical, plotted, and deliberate revenge? I could not help but to love and admire the crows. They impressed me with their astonishing intelligence, and to this day they are my favorite bird. If I were to asses the intelligence of other animals, I would cut a straight line to whales and dolphins.

Learn more about this author, Egon Lass.
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