CROWS: Alone/Together

Here’s a typical family scenario: breakfast at home together, everyone helps clean up. But when it comes to a picnic or shopping, this family unit turns into a bunch of individuals, each of whom goes their own way. Now although we’re talking about humans here, there is another animal that behaves in a very similar fashion. I’m Jim Metzner and this is Pulse of the Planet presented by The American Museum of Natural History.

ambience crows solo and mobbing
“While the family’s at home they act as a group. They wander around the territory together. They forage together while one of the family will be sitting up in a tree watching for predators and things like that. They wander around and are a group.”

The animal in question is the crow. Professor Kevin McGowan, Associate Curator of birds and mammals at Cornell University has been studying the behavior of crows for the past 9 years.

“They will leave this territory during the day, and when they leave the territory and go off and join these other foraging groups of birds or congregate in cornfields and things like that no longer are they a unit. They’re a bunch of individuals. I like to think of it kind of like the way my sister and I used to do when I was a teenager and we’d go to the mall. We’d arrive together and then we’d just sort of pretend like we didn’t know each other and wander off on our own respective ways. Crows seem to do that as well.”

When crows wander off alone it probably is not because they are being anti-social: almost certainly they have something else on their mind.

“When the birds gather together they could very easily be going out into singles flocks to try to look for mates. I suspect that this is actually an important component of why crows get together to forage. And get together to spend the night — is to check out the other crows.”

So the next time you see a crowd of young people flocking together at the local mall, just remember, birds of a feather have families, too. Pulse of the Planet is presented by the American Museum of Natural History. I’m Jim Metzner.

CROWS: Alone/Together

The social habits of crows resemble those of a more familiar animal...
Air Date:11/10/1997
Scientist:
Transcript:

Here's a typical family scenario: breakfast at home together, everyone helps clean up. But when it comes to a picnic or shopping, this family unit turns into a bunch of individuals, each of whom goes their own way. Now although we're talking about humans here, there is another animal that behaves in a very similar fashion. I'm Jim Metzner and this is Pulse of the Planet presented by The American Museum of Natural History.

ambience crows solo and mobbing
"While the family's at home they act as a group. They wander around the territory together. They forage together while one of the family will be sitting up in a tree watching for predators and things like that. They wander around and are a group."

The animal in question is the crow. Professor Kevin McGowan, Associate Curator of birds and mammals at Cornell University has been studying the behavior of crows for the past 9 years.

"They will leave this territory during the day, and when they leave the territory and go off and join these other foraging groups of birds or congregate in cornfields and things like that no longer are they a unit. They're a bunch of individuals. I like to think of it kind of like the way my sister and I used to do when I was a teenager and we'd go to the mall. We'd arrive together and then we'd just sort of pretend like we didn't know each other and wander off on our own respective ways. Crows seem to do that as well."

When crows wander off alone it probably is not because they are being anti-social: almost certainly they have something else on their mind.

"When the birds gather together they could very easily be going out into singles flocks to try to look for mates. I suspect that this is actually an important component of why crows get together to forage. And get together to spend the night -- is to check out the other crows."

So the next time you see a crowd of young people flocking together at the local mall, just remember, birds of a feather have families, too. Pulse of the Planet is presented by the American Museum of Natural History. I'm Jim Metzner.