Hacker Cinema
A Murder of Crows
1999 · Film · 102 min
Directed by Rowdy Herrington
In the wake of a career-ending scandal, disgraced lawyer Lawson Russell moves to Key West, where he befriends aging novelist Christopher Marlowe. After letting Russell borrow his latest manuscript, Marlowe dies of a heart attack. When Russell publishes the dead man's manuscript under his own name, he makes the best-seller list—and unwittingly becomes the prime suspect in the investigation of a grisly multiple homicide.
9 positive2 neutralfrom 11 commenters
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12 comments on Hacker News
I remember that story from the documentary called 'A Murder of Crows'.
The University of Washington in conjunction with PBS did a documentary on the crows of Seattle. UW does quite a bit of research on the local (and quite abundant) subspecies of crow, so it's rather interesting.
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/a-murder-of-crows-full-episode/5977/
Also see this documentary A Murder of Crows:
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/a-murder-of-crows-full-episode/5977/
Here's a youtube of the same documentary (A Murder of Crows) for folks outside the US:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s472GjbLKQ4
Edit: anecdotally I've seen similar behavior and intelligence demonstrated by African Grey parrots (Psittacus erithacus)
For those interested in animal intelligence, I recommend watching "A Murder of Crows", a short documentary about crow intelligence that's available free online. http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/episodes/a-murder-of-crows/introduction/5838/
Crows are one of the only other animals that can make and use tools. In fact, crows probably spend more time building their tools than any other animal than humans; they carefully clip the limbs from a tree branch, whittle it down, and fashion it into an effective hook. The documentary also shows some intelligence tests in which crows perform almost as well as human children.
Crow documentary: http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/episodes/a-murder-of-crows/full-episode/5977/
This echoes to a statement in the "A Murder Of Crows" documentary linked in this thread, which goes like "They are smart, but we are the smartest". If there is an intelligence vastly superior than ours, what are the chances that we find out it exists? Can an "inferior" intelligence identify an other one as "superior"? Put in another way: if a superior AI emerges from one of our experiments, will we be able to understand its output?
Excellent PBS Nature episode on the subject too: http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/episodes/a-murder-of-crows/full-episode/5977/
Just last night I watched a really, really great documentary on crow intelligence called "A Murder of Crows". I highly, highly recommend it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s472GjbLKQ4
A Murder Of Crows was done in concert w/ CBC, though they may have done their own post-production work (I've only watched the PBS version). Canadians should probably look to the CBC[1] to watch it. There's also an interesting blurb from the director here[2].
[1]: http://www.cbc.ca/documentaries/natureofthings/2009/murderofcrows/
[2]: http://www.cbc.ca/documentaries/natureofthings/2009/murderofcrows/director.html
Parrots call each other by names as well[1] and crows have been shown to speak in two different dialects depending if they are with a group or among individuals[2]. In the same link about crows, they have also been seen using tools in the wild and in experiments using "meta tools", something that only primates have been observed doing (using one tool to reach another tool that will be used for their end goal [generally food]).
It's quite amazing how much we take the animals around us for granted sometimes since all of this, like the dolphins is really new research that has only hit the tip of the iceberg.
The documentary about crows from PBS is quite insightful (full episode is at the link below if your region allows it). I was never much of a fan of crows and considered them kind of an annoyance. However, after watching it, I gained much more respect for their intelligence and complexity.
[1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ed9A4HPdXgQ
[2] http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/episodes/a-murder-of-crows/full-episode/5977/
edit: the OP link actually mentions those particular crows and their tool usage in one of the slides.
For anyone that finds this interesting, I highly recommend "A Murder of Crows", which was made a few years ago and is where I first heard of the idea of birds holding funerals:
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/episodes/a-murder-of-crows/full-episode/5977/