Smart and social, crows have adapted very well to our cities and to the human world around them.
The intelligence of crows has been well documented by researchers, and it seems that we’re constantly amazed at their abilities.
What’s even more astonishing, however, is when ordinary people like you and me catch crows in our own neighborhoods not only using their masterful mind skills to solve problems but for the sole purpose of having fun. The video below is a case in point. Watch as one family captured an inventive crow that fabricated a sled out of a mayonnaise jar lid and used it to slide down a rooftop “hill”—just for the heck of it.
Seeing how much fun this clever corvid can manufacture in winter, I only wish I could see what he’s got up his sleeve (or wing!) for spring.
Here’s to finding your true places and natural habitats,
Candy
Indeed Corvids are very intelligent and it has been described by others too that they may slide down from a roof covered with snow, like Bernd Heinrich did in his great book ‘Mind of a Raven’. I work a lot with rooks and they show play too, even together with jackdaws. However, I think the video does not show an invention, but a balancing on and handling of an item (the lid) that includes something attractive to peck (hammer) at. The crow does not want to loose it and keeps balancing on it while it happens to slide down. The basic motivation of pecking at it is very obvious to see after the sliding. And it also happens at the top of the roof, which is a location to perch and has no snow. What the bird is pecking at is not clear. remaining food? Or perhaps the rubber inside the lid. I have seen rooks hammering at the rubber sealing of a window, leaving large holes in the sealing. So invention may happen by Corvids, but I am not sure whether this is the case in he video.