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Tale of a Rascal Crow

January 24, 2015
These corvids are clever!
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Rook Expand Image
© Margaret Holland

Crows and their cousins - ravens, magpies, jackdaws, rooks, jays, and others - are among the cleverest birds in the world. Some even use tools - including a lit cigarette! A Rook, like this one, allegedly set fire to the thatched roof of Anne Hathaway’s historic cottage in England. And all because it had an itch...

Drop us a line and let us know what you think of birds -- and of BirdNote. We'd like to hear from you!

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BirdNote®

Tale of a Rascal Crow

Written by Frances Wood

This is BirdNote! [Single crow cawing]

Today, I have a crow story. One day at Anne Hathaway’s historic thatched-roof house in England, the roof caught fire and burned. The police suspected arson. The owners repaired the roof and also hired a guard to watch the house. A week later, that same guard finished a smoke and tossed his cigarette butt to the ground. To his astonishment, a crow* picked it up in its beak and flew to the top of the cottage. There, the bird stuck the smoldering cigarette under its wing and held it for a few moments next to its body feathers, before dropping the cigarette on the roof. Soon the thatch began to burn. [Sound of thatch on fire.] The guard called for help and then extinguished the fire.
After the story hit the newspapers, a bird watcher offered this explanation: Crows* that suffer with feather parasites have learned that they can hold smoldering embers in their wing-pits to smoke out these pests. The owners of the Hathaway cottage had found the arsonist—a crow* with an itch! [Repeat crow cawing]

What do you think? Too improbable? No? Have you seen a bird do something that surprised you? Let us know at birdnote.org. I’m Mary McCann.

###

Calls of crows provided by: The Macaulay Library of Natural Sounds at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, New York.
Sound recordist: G.A.Keller
Producer: John Kessler
Executive Producer: Chris Peterson
© 2015 Tune In to Nature.org     January 2015     Narrator: Mary McCann

ID# 030405AMCRKPLU     AMCR-02-MM-2009-03-29

* Editor's note: the bird was most likely a Rook or perhaps a Carrion Crow.
And we're story to say that this story seems to have been a creative tale. A myth, widely perpetuated, thanks to the internet. Seems possible, though, doesn't it? Those corvids can be real rascals. There was a fire at the cottage in 1969, and perhaps a couple of stories were merged at that time...


 

Frances Wood
Writer
Mary McCann
Narrator
Tags: England, history, Europe

Related Resources

Drop us a line and tell us what you think of BirdNoteLearn more about the clever crow!Crows with cigarettes... Check 'em out!Find out more about crows at All About Birds

More About These Birds

Rook (Corvus frugilegus)

American Crow (Corvus brachyrhynchos)

Corvus brachyrhynchos

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Birds connect us with the joy and wonder of nature. By telling vivid, sound-rich stories about birds and the challenges they face, BirdNote inspires listeners to care about the natural world – and take steps to protect it.

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