Tooth & Claw: True Stories of Animal Attacks - Crow Attack - Crows Never Forget

Episode Date: February 9, 2021

Jeff takes over for the first Tooth and Claw mini, and has some incredibly bizarre, Hitchcock-ian stories to share about some persistent crows and other birds who have taken issue with humankind. (Disclaimer: We experienced some technical issues while recording, so please forgive us for some random volume swings you may hear.)  ~~ To advertise on the show, contact us! ~~ Tooth & Claw is brought to you by QCODE. Support the show and get access to an extensive library of exclusive episodes like this by supporting the show on Patreon or joining the Grizzly Club on Apple Podcasts. For the latest updates on the show and all things wildlife, follow us at toothandclawpod.com and social:  Instagram: @ToothandClawPodcast Twitter: @ToothandClawPod Wes: @GrizKid Jeff: @jefe_larson Mike: @mikey3ds                          Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of Tooth and Claw. Today we're doing something a little different. Jeff is going to take the reins this time and talk about some super weird bird attack stories. This is what we're calling a mini episode, which is something we're going to be doing every other week and releasing exclusively for those who subscribe to our Patreon, which you can find at www. patreon.com slash tooth and claw podcast. Speaking of which, we're on Patreon. For those of you who don't know what that is, Patreon is a platform,

listeners like you can financially support content creators like us for all kinds of different and fun little perks. So if you want access to more tooth and claw content like these mini episodes or early access to our main episodes or some cool merch and some other stuff, you can subscribe to us there. Patreon's great because it allows us to create the content that we want to make and not have to worry about trying to do things that we don't really want to do to try and reach a new audience or find sponsorship opportunities. So if you have a little bit of extra cash and want to help us keep things up and running, you can go over to Patreon and look at our different tiers. We have a $5 tier, a $10 tier, and a $20 tier. And any of those would be awesome. We would appreciate really anything that you guys are able to give us,

and your financial support would really go a long way to keep our podcast up and running. We would be extremely grateful for anything you feel like you can contribute. And if you're not in a financial situation where you feel like you can contribute, don't worry, since our main episodes will still be released everywhere for free. Thank you so much again. All right, let's get to Jeff talking about birds. All right, what's up, guys? How are we doing?

What's up? How you feel about getting fresh snow the last week? I feel great. Yeah? I love precipitation. Just in general. I like rain more than snow, oddly. I think maybe that's a hot take, but I like both.

Snow in the mountains, rain in the valley. Yeah, there we go. Here's what I want. See, I don't like rain at all in the winter, ever. I want it to be snow. know if it's cold outside. Jeff, I got a more important question for you. Let's hear.

How are you feeling about the challenge? Oh, I'm just glad it's going. It's not going to be the best season because it's quarantine, but got my guy CT in there. Yeah. Mine and Jeff's probably favorite show on TV is MTV's The Challenge, which is just a really trashy reality competition show. Yeah, I want to say it's my favorite show, but it's, I do really. enjoy it a lot. So maybe it is. But I don't want everyone to know that.

Okay. All right. So today I'm going to lead our first podcast. Well, I said that weird, but off to a good start. I'm going to be at the forefront of a story for this episode. I'm going to tell you, I'm going to tell Wes and Mike. And Wes, yes. What are your top three favorite types of birds? You know, this is a question that's constant. Like, my top three are constantly changing. All right. But right now, I would say kingfishers, paragon falcons, and toucans. Oh, give me two more.

Ravens. Uh-huh. And, uh, harpy eagles. Okay, well, that's not either what we're talking about. But we're going to get into crows first, which is pretty close to a raven. Same family. Morbidane. So this guy in India has been getting attacked by crows for the last four years.

Every single day. He gets attacked by crows. So his name is Shiva Kowat, and he's from Madhaya, Pardesh, India. So I'm sure I said some of that wrong. But what happened was it was four years ago he saw a baby crow stuck in like some metal netting, and he went to go help it out, and he, like, grabbed the crow, took it, and it died. So this group of crows thinks that he killed their baby crow.

And Coet says that he wishes he could only explain to them that he was only trying to help. Poor things, they believe I killed the chick. And I watched a video. Everywhere he goes, he has to bring, like, a big stick with him to, like, like fend off these crows. And I watched a video and there's just a crow circling above him. So I was reading this article about it and apparently people in the village think it's really funny. When they see him walking outside, they'll go outside just to watch him get attacked by crows. And they're quoted saying the crows attack him like their showfighter jets diving toward a target in movies. So that's what the

people in the village said how long has this been going on 40 years no four years okay yeah that's still pretty awesome though yeah i'll have to put the video on our instagram or something but yeah so he tried to save one of their babies and because of it they just attack him every single day he leaves the house cruel twist of faith so crows are pretty smart right yeah you wouldn't he wouldn't wouldn't be able to fool him if you went out in like a disguise or something. I don't know. It's surprising they can recognize. I'm sure he's tried different things.

I'm really curious what kind of crow they are. Like ravens, for example, they're not a crow. It's a raven. But they're in the same family and they're much smarter than crows. Like they're one of the smartest birds. Yeah. So I'm really curious what kind of bird this might be to be like that smart to target the same guy over and over and over. So I was reading about bird attacks.

and this guy in Vancouver, or somewhere in British Columbia, there's like a ton of crow attacks in Vancouver and all through Canada. So he started a website called Crow Tracks. It's like the Ways app where if you see a cop, you report it. But it's like if you see a crow and are attacked by it, you report it to this website. It has over 5,000 entries. So I was reading through it. You'll love it. You click on a different section of the world, and it has, like, all these different crow attacks.

So I'll read you some just, like, one-sentence stories that I've heard from Canada. Was first attacked from behind with his wing, then seconds later literally pecked the back of my head. I screamed while a lady on the bench laughed and took refuge under an awing. I'd be the lady on the bench. Yeah. One hundred percent be laughing at that. Oh, and these are all in Vancouver. One crow attacked my head from behind while walking down the sidewalk.

I screamed, then walked with my small purse on my head. Three crows continued to swoop and follow me for half a block while I walked in the middle of the road. Two crows came up from behind, alternating attacks, and struck my head. I would have given it a five rating, but they did not draw blood. It was terrifying. Oh, so this is a... So, yeah, they have like a rating system. This is a lot more appealing to me now.

I like this. Followed me for a block across. an intersection diving at my sandwich through the sandwich but it kept at me huh so this is like each spot on the map has like a little thing and I just am reading a few of them crow continuously attacking workmen in high visibility vests took a hat right off a man so I have to imagine like just coming out this from like a biologist's perspective yeah like a lot of these are probably crows that have been fed like to a high degree and so they're just so used to to people that they're like diving them to get at their food.

And then a lot of them are probably people who are like way too close to a crow nest. That's what it's. So they're swooping down and scaring them off. Well, it sounded like in Vancouver, they just have their nests right on the sidewalk. Yeah. So they'll just like swoop at everyone walking on the sidewalk. So like most of these I better that, but like the guy that was having a sandwich and it like knocked out of it.

I think that's a bird that had been fed that's just trying to get some more food. All right. So here's here's one I really liked. One started dive bombing my dog while I was trying to take a shit on the neighbor's lawn. Then another joined in and came after me. Quite the tag teaming duo. They followed us for a full block. Very stressful situation.

Did not pick up my dog crap. Oh, I thought the guy was taking a dump on the lawn. No, is it? Okay. That's, uh, I like those cross. And then. Great about public sanitation. One more from Ogden, Utah.

This was the only entry from Utah Saw a crow on the sidewalk with an injured wing And tried to keep my distance However, the other crows became very predictive Of their injured friend And started to body slam my head The flock chased me the next block Interesting

Body slam? What does that mean? Just like Just dive bomb? Okay Every other posts had dive bomb in the sentence Anyone's in there just trolling and like putting on, I don't know.

I'm sure if you are, but man, when you read it. It doesn't seem like fertile ground for just trolls, though. It seems like legitimate. Like how many communities there are that? True. So wait. How big are crows usually? I mean, like poundage, I would guess they're like probably like three pounds.

Yeah. Okay. Because three pounds getting body slammed in the head. That's like, it's not an insignificant bird hitting you. Especially with like their big beak is like probably like. probably what they're going. Like a lot of people were getting like hit with beaks and stuff. I feel like most of the birds in the birds were crows. Really? Yeah. Huh. I haven't really ever thought of the ones from like watching the movie. They're mostly crows. Okay. Not that that like is a true

movie but I think it's not what I think that's what Hitchcock used for a lot of the birds. Two Good and Co-Copy creamers are made with farm fresh cream real milk and contain three grams of sugar per serving. That's 40% less than the 5 grams per serving and leading traditional coffee creamers for a rich, delicious experience. Whether you enjoy your coffee hot, cold, bold, or frothy, two good coffee creamers make every sip a good one. Two good coffee creamers, real goodness in every sip. Find them at your local Kroger in the creamer aisle. You go to Hawaii in your head all the time, but when you're actually ready to go, there's Expedia. Flights, hotels, vacation homes, cars,

save more when you bundle so you can stop dreaming and start saving. Expedia, the one place you go to go places. Members only savings vary. When I was asking you for your top five birds, I was hoping you'd go with a red-wing blackbird. Oh, I forgot. They are, yeah, they're top three. Okay, that's what I was reaching for. Apparently, they are attacking a lot of people recently.

Have you heard this? I haven't. Yeah, so there's Stephen Velder who said that he does peaceful lakeside runs near Marlborough, Massachusetts. And just because of encroachment, red-wing blackbirds are having nests closer to the running track now. It says, you talk to people about being attacked by birds and they look at you like you're crazy. This is the birds, like Alfred Hedrocks, the birds, all over again, but it's real. And apparently it's like a real problem with red-wing blackbirds. There was a guy who lives in Richfield, Minnesota.

His name's Matt Esler. and he says that he has to run with like an umbrella on his running trail because red wing blackbirds like keep flying at his head. That's a ridiculous image. Yeah. And he started a, he like did a Facebook post about it and like a bunch of other people were like, oh yeah, I'm getting attacked by these red wing blackbirds. Can you describe a red wing blackbird for us? Pretty small. I mean, I don't know how much they weigh, but it's like a pretty small songbird.

Like you could fit a red-wing blackbird in your two hands And they're really cute They're like all black And they have like a red and yellow patch on their wing They have a really unique call I'm not good at bird calls or else I'd do it But it's a really cool call I love the call

They usually live around marshes Their wings are red No so they're black wings But they have like this really cool little red And yellow patch on their wing It almost looks like an army uniform If you had like a patch on the sleeve The swastika arm band

No, not. It's like that, though, right? Yeah. I mean, we just watched Indiana Jones. That's why it's on the brain. Yeah. That's the only reason why I promise. So his story from Esler's friend, Brad Ray, he said that he was walking, he felt something

hit the back of his head while he is managing a walking club as a program director for a senior living community in Richfield. He looked around and saw a squawking blackbird staring at. Adam down from a tree. He and Mr. Esler think it was the nemesis. That's like their Facebook group is calling them nemesis. So, yeah,

it's a whole thing, like, the Red Wing Blackbirds are attacking people. It's kind of, it's one of those things where, like, like, I think the stories are really funny, but I hate that there's, like, a Facebook group where they are talking about these birds as their enemies. Because it's like they encroached

on their habitat. You're like, these people want to run by these wetlands. And everything I've read, the people are doing all they can to not hurt the birds. It seems like they like they like that's why he had the umbrella was so he didn't have to hit it with something. Because if they like, they're like, we need to get rid of these blackbirds. If they see him as like, no, it wasn't like that. It was just like a little joke that started. Yeah. Okay. All right. So those were my stories. I told like, I like, if you count my sentence stories from Vancouver, that's like 25 stories. That's a lot of value in this. short amount of time. That's incredible. So now I got some crow facts. So apparently in 2011, researchers in Seattle found that crows hold grudges

and remember human faces. So... Sense that lines up. Yeah, they caught and banded crows for five years apart. And even after a year of not seeing the human who caught him, the birds could recognize them. Whoa. And they would swoop and dive

bomb at the person they remembered causing them discomfort. Body slam. So like that dude in India Shiva getting a taxi like every day. Like they're not forgetting him. There's this cool story about crows in Japan. They can read traffic lights. So they'll get a walnut and they'll like put it where the cars go during a red light.

Awesome. And then like once the light turns green, they fly off the road. The cars will go over the walnuts. And then once it turns red again, they go back in. It's like almost like tool use. Pretty impressive. Oh, and that I have a trivia section. that we're going to do where I'm going to ask you about tools.

So another crow brains are proportionally bigger than a human brain. It's 2.7% of the bird's overall weight. And with us, it's 1.9%. Uh, Wes, can you give me the three smartest, or three biggest brains for a bird? Like three types of bird with the biggest brain? Yes, it would be African gray parrot, raven, and crow. Yep, you got it. What?

I mean, it just said parrots. But how did it's African grace that have the, yeah. How did you know that? I'm a wildlife biologist, is what I do. Birds count as wildlife? Yeah. Okay, so we're going to go into categories now. Okay.

So we're going to do trivia. Wes, I just gave you one. And you got it. Nice job. All right. So, Mike, what is a group of crows called? Murder. Nice job.

Wes, crows are one of the only animals that use tools. What type of tools do they use? Hmm. Cars. To break open. wallets. Yeah, that's a good one. I would imagine it's like sticks, just little sticks to like, I don't know what they do with them, but little sticks. Yeah, so there's crows in the South Pacific, I had the name down by I forgot it, but they're South Pacific crows and they like make their own

tools. They make little hooks and they'll put them into tree bark to like secure bugs and insects and like get them out of trees. Yeah, and that's such a like, there aren't many animals in the world that use tools. Like tool use is considered a really high level intelligence. So if an animal starts using tools, you know that they're on like a different level from most of the other animals. It's mainly just like primates and a couple birds, right?

I heard more than just tools they're, they can solve like rudimentary puzzles. Yeah. Is that something you're going to bring up? No, but it said like to like a human's extent, it's like a five year old to eight year old level puzzle they can solve. Okay, so I want you both to. guess the longest living captive crow uh i have no idea i'm gonna guess like in history 38 years old

mike 400 000 one lived to be 59 the longest recorded in the while was 15 years 59 nice and then last trivia question 59 is not it's not the number it's close okay so i want you both to just name as fast as you can, we'll go for like 20 seconds. As many team names with a bird mascot as you can. Okay. Okay, ready, go. Orioles, Eagles, ravens, cardinals, pelicans, Seahawks.

Hawks. What? Yeah, you're right. Blue Jays. Cardinals. I think I said that. No, I didn't know. We're keeping it going to go on.

Mike, it's your turn. We're going to keep on. Oh, we're going sequentially. You get four, three, two, The one. Okay. You get it done like Atlanta Falcons. There's a lot of...

Falcons. Yeah. Yeah. Football. Oh, yeah, yeah. Aren't they the Hawks? No, that's basketball. Yeah, they got two bird.

I didn't realize that. That's cool. Okay. There's some trivia. So now, next category. Favorite crow and pop culture? Penguins? For me?

Penguins, yeah, that's a good one. Oh, yeah. John Snow from Game of Thrones. John Snow is not a crow. He is a crow. Is that the crow's name? No, like, they're the crows. Oh, I thought you meant.

like the dude the guy at the wall wild things call him crows okay I thought you meant like the one that's like corn snow I'll go with counting crows cool uh mine is jake the crow it's brooks it's brook's pet crow and shashank redemption yeah yeah you like he's always feeding maggots out of their food too yeah yeah I like that's like that's a good pick love the counting crows yeah long December it's a great song they're one of those ones that didn't survive the Y2K curse. Yeah, it's dead wrong. 2,000 hit and they just disappeared.

Yeah. I don't know what happened. How many crows can you fight off at once? I can fight one off. Like, what's the most that you could? I think I could fight off 34 crows. Oh, wow. Shiva, how many is the Shiva guy fighting?

17. You'd go with 17? Are they all coming at you at once? Yeah. With the intent to, like, kill you. But you can kill a few right off the bat. So if you kind of survive that initial assault, I think you can do pretty well. So I'm sticking with 34.

How would your strat? That may be a little too gruesome. I'm just throwing my arms around and knock them out of here. Tornado spin. No one do this. I wanted to do just since we're not going to do like a lot of bird talk in the future, I don't think. Favorite bird in pop culture. We've got a few birds coming up.

Okay. We can do favorite bird. Sure. Yeah. You're running the show right now. I like the one in King Arthur, like the one a while ago, where the dude has like a pet falcon and he like can't, he has like a eye patch or something, I think. I don't remember that.

I don't, you know, that's a big category. Yeah, it's a, I should have prepped you for that. Who's the, what's the bird that the hun, the leader of the huns in Mulan has? Uh, yeah. That's a cool. That's a cool one I said. I would say, I don't know, that's too hard. Too kind to him.

I like, I'm not, I don't really care. too can't Sam. One that's like for some reason coming to mind are the vultures in Jungle Book. Like are kind of like the Beatles. Oh yeah. That's a good one. But I don't know. What's the what's the girl's name in?

It's always sunny. D. D. Yeah, they always call it. My favorite bird. All right. Last but not least, we're just going to go our favorite birds. So Wes, you kind of already.

I'm going to say I'm going to go with Red Wing Blackbird, actually. I'm going to go with Red Wing Blackbird. As your number one? I think so. Okay. Mike? Where's bald eagles on your list? You're un-American.

Yeah. What about like... I am. Okay. Well, there we go. Your favorite owl and where would it rank? Well, owl is going to be my... Snowy owl. Snowy owl?

It's going to be my favorite bird, period. Yeah. I'm probably going to say barn owls from my favorite owl. I think barn owls are so... Where would you rank it in birds? Ugh. I love birds. Like top ten?

You think an owl cracks your top ten? I'm going to put in my top ten. All right. Maybe Athena's little mechanics. mechanical owl in the old clash of the Titans maybe that's a cool owl some mechanical birds and old I I've been really coming around on owls I think me and Mike talked about him recently I'm like I've been sleeping on owls this all time like they're really cool we'll probably do an owl up so like a snowy owl or barn owl they just don't really spring to mind when you think of birds at least for me yeah

because you don't really see them outside very often like what animal that lives around here do you think you'd or what bird that lives around here would you be most excited to see? For me? Yeah. Probably like I get really excited whenever I see Golden Eagles because I've gotten But like you'd be more excited if you saw like an owl. Probably a peregrine falcon. Okay.

They're my favorites to see. Do you like owl Pacino? How? It's interesting. I don't know what that means, but yeah. Al Pacino? Yeah, I get it. You don't know what it means?

It's just a terrible joke. I know an owl Pacino is. I don't know what owl Pacino. What, his name is owl? Something funny on Reddit. I follow this subreddit that's called Super Bowl, but it's actually superb owl, and it's just like pictures of owls. Some people go there looking through like Super Bowl stuff.

Yeah, someone got in there and made the subreddit before a football fan could. But yeah, I'm going to go for my favorite birds. I'll go Red Wing Blackbird. Probably a snowy owl would be up there. and a Ketsaw. Ketsaw's in, like, Guatemala, they're just like, I've never seen one, but, like, that's probably the bird I'd most want to see. Yeah, I'm surprised you pick two birds that you've never seen as, like, yeah, that's true. I feel like with birds, I, like, blackwing, or red wing blackbirds and, like, kingfishers are, like, birds that I have, like, a really close connection to.

So, they're some of my favorites. Great blue herons are pretty exciting to see. Flamingos. I like flamingos. I like flamingos. I like flamingos. Cool. Why not? I like birds. There's like very few birds that I have magpie. What are you guys least favorite type of bird? Love magpies. Magpies are kind of cool. Do you have a least favorite?

My least favorite? Hmm. Probably those like morning doves. Yeah, the doves. They are just constantly cooing. I'm like seagulls. I know you like them. I'm not a big fan. I just like all birds. I really do. Yeah. All right. Well, that's all I got. Thanks for letting me run the show. Yeah, you're welcome. All right. Yeah, anytime. Okay. Sounds good. See you guys. Thanks for listening. Yeah.

See you.