Are Crows Assholes? An Investigation.

The story about a vain, but foolish crow perched on a tree who, flattered by a fox, decides to show off his singing voice and lets out a loud caw, forgetting the piece of food in his mouth that falls to the ground and is eaten by the cunning fox, is one that many of us are likely to have heard as children. Credited to the Greek storyteller Aesop, who is thought to have lived between 620 and 564 BCE, stories have the power to traverse time and space, cutting across cultures and geographical boundaries. 

Stories also hold the power to shape our beliefs and preconceived notions about the world around us, just as the image of the crow as a vain, foolish, devious, mean, and even downright evil bird persists. 

When Edgar Allen Poe had to think of a bird annoying enough to drive a man insane, the raven is where he landed – the raven being a member of the crow family. There’s also the still-popular Hindi song, “Jhoot Bole Kauva Kaate,” which roughly translates to “If you lie, a crow will bite you” from the 1973 film Bobby. 

More recently, the character of Fei Hargreeves from the OTT series The Umbrella Academy is able to manifest crows from her body to do her bidding. They can be seen manically pecking through doors and silently stalking their victims before chasing them head-on into streetlamps – just another example of corvids continuing to find their way into our collective imagination. 

From the 1963 Hitchcock film The Birds, which made the collective noun “a murder of crows” a bit too literal to the more recent Schitt’s Creek, which further drives the narrative of mutant crows in its masterpiece of a fake film (The Crows Have Eyes III: The Crowening, starring the great Moira Rose) within the plot, is the ubiquitous urban bird maligned by our need to villanise elements that don’t work in our favour? Or is the bird actually an… asshole? 

Viral videos seem to paint a picture of the bird as dickish too – be it mobbing a bald eagle, stealing junk food, stalking people sometimes for years on end, even terrorising entire neighbourhoods.

Indians, especially followers of the Hindu religion, seem to have a complicated relationship with our subject. In Hinduism, crows are considered to be the link between the living and the dead, as it is believed that the dead visit the living in the form of a crow. The Hindu ritual of Shradh includes the preparation of a meal featuring the favourite dishes of the deceased. An offering is first made to the crows, and only when the first one has taken a bite of the food is the ritual considered complete. Feeding crows is considered auspicious and a sign that our ancestors have attained nirvana or salvation. On the other hand, if crows perch themselves on our balconies and caw persistently, they announce the arrival of unwanted guests. 

Mythologist Sundeep Verma describes crows as fascinating birds that find mention in the ancient mythologies of the world, including the Norse and Celtic mythologies, apart from Hindu mythology itself. He explained that they are not always looked at from a negative lens.  

Hindu gods and goddesses are usually depicted according to their powers and knowledge. Almost all have a designated animal or bird who serves as their vaahan or vehicle. Tantric goddess Dhumavati – who represents the fearsome aspect of Devi, known as the Divine Mother in Hinduism – is depicted as an old, unpleasant looking woman and often described as a goddess of misfortune, decay, and destruction. She is said to ride a horseless chariot bearing the emblem of a crow and has also been portrayed sitting in a chariot drawn by a pair of crows. It bears mentioning, however, that the figure of Dhumavati is also an invitation to go beyond superficial appearances. Said to be kind, the goddess has the power to bestow truth-seekers with gifts and special abilities.

Another Hindu deity, Shani Dev, who is the divine personification of the planet Saturn, is also depicted as riding a large crow. Shani is widely believed to cause chaos in people’s lives, though mythologists might argue that as Shani is the god of karma or deeds, he is essentially a wise teacher.

That being said, the crow is largely associated with inauspiciousness in Hinduism. “It’s the reason crows are connected to death; they are the connectors of the living and dead worlds,” said Verma.

But as for their deviant social behaviour, it may actually come down to a simple fact: Crows are bloody intelligent – possibly the smartest in the animal kingdom after primates.

Ornithologist and wildlife photographer Surya Pratap explained how the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and multiple “crovid” experts have conducted experiments on crows. 

Their findings tell us that along with complex social lives, the ability to use tools, and hold “funerals,” crows are also born problem-solvers. When presented with a series of complicated and inter-connected puzzles all leading the bird towards a tasty reward, our subject came through.

“The reason I refer to them as animals is that they have much better brains [than birds]. I mean, how many birds can solve puzzles,” Pratap asked, rhetorically. 

John M. Marzluff, a wildlife biologist at the University of Washington, conducted an experiment along with his students and proved that crows indeed remember and identify faces even when covered with masks. He observed that he was “scolded” by the section of crows he trapped for his experiment whenever he crossed the college campus. 

Kevin J. McGowan, an ornithologist at Cornell University in New York, was harassed by crows he had banded together for a study, for almost 20 years. 

It probably makes sense then that humans, who usually disregard birds as they go through the motions of life, find themselves perplexed when a crow enters the equation.

“I have always been wary of crows,” said 24-year-old aviation student Sumedha Chandra. “I saw one of them hanging outside my room – he was banging his head against the glass. Just for the heck of it, I did the same thing. The next day he came back with friends. I was terrified.” 

The negative association of the colour black with death, evil, and ill will might add to our uneasiness with the bird.

But crows, apart from being portrayed as airborne assassins of the highest order or peddlers of death, actually do a job that’s become integral to our lives – especially for those living in cities: the job of scavenging.

These self-sustaining, no-fucks-given birds have been acting as our cleaning crew for a long time. Pecking through trash is the crow’s superpower, and their cleverness allows them to use the tools that the task requires. “Crows are really vital for waste management,” said Soham Kacker, a research student of biology and ecology. “You may see them around garbage [dumps] in cities, which may contribute to their not very great reputation.” 

Humans have a tendency to think of cleaning as a menial task for a variety of reasons.We even go so far as to place humans who clean up after us in the lowest of the social strata, and it is not riotous that we treat the bird with the same connotation. 

Perhaps that’s the reason why the decline of the crow population in several parts of the world, particularly in India, is not really an alarming situation for most of us. Even so, Paul R. Greenough, professor of modern Indian history and community and behavioural health at the University of Iowa, who is studying the decline of common Indian house crows, has presented concerns on how the house bird is rapidly declining in numbers. 

“A major contributor to the declining population of crows in the country is urbanisation,” said Pratap. “Crows are losing their much-needed habitats while pigeons are taking over buildings where they can roost very well, so we have created a sort of competition. There is definitely a link between the decreasing population of  crows and the climate crisis.” Sightings and increased activity of crows in an area means the food chain is getting back on track. As scavengers, they take care of a lot of dead and decaying matter. “A reducing population of crows in an urban location is indicative of [fewer] trees in urban locations, and by extension global temperatures rising,” he explained.

Apart from helping maintain the global thermostat, scientists suggest that crows are highly intelligent and social birds that are in danger of disappearing from our cities. Most of us, however, have flagged crows to be either antagonistic or auspicious at our convenience. So, who’s the asshole then?

Follow Swetlana on Instagram.