Philosophy Now Forum

Obvious Leo wrote:Hobbes. Deal with this please.

Obvious Leo wrote: You're forgetting something. The population in the protected areas goes up dramatically before the shooting season even begins.

Ducks migrate.
Ducks that are not dead always return to their nesting areas. Dead ducks tend to stay away.

Dubious wrote:

Walker wrote:

Obvious Leo wrote:I've personally witnessed a crow funeral, which is a truly a very spooky sight. I use the term "crow" somewhat loosely because that's what the native sub-species is commonly called in these parts. Strictly speaking this is inaccurate because they're actually a type of raven.

I never heard of that. Looked it up. Very strange. What did you see? Did they make any noise, or an unusual noise?

At ~ the 43 minute mark in the URL I provided, and probably no one looked at, there's an example of what would appear to be a crow funeral. Not a lot of formality but there is certainly something in their behavior of acknowledgement to a fallen comrade. Their version of a moment of silence.

This thread grew so quickly I missed that whole page of postings, the video, and the earlier comments about crow funerals. Looks good, I’ll check it out soon.

There’s a good chance I’ve seen such funerals in progress, but without cognitive recognition to build a memory.

Considering that there so many crows around, any congregation of silent crows, or quietly muttering crows, is likely a funeral. A search in the underbrush would verify.

Dubious wrote: At ~ the 43 minute mark in the URL I provided, and probably no one looked at, there's an example of what would appear to be a crow funeral. Not a lot of formality but there is certainly something in their behavior of acknowledgement to a fallen comrade. Their version of a moment of silence.

Crows know a good meal when they see one.,

As soon as their little song of hierarchy is over the the winning crow steps forward and gets to take first pickings. The dead crow will last about two minutes until it is picked clean.

Fallen comrade bullshit.

Hobbes' Choice wrote:

Dubious wrote: At ~ the 43 minute mark in the URL I provided, and probably no one looked at, there's an example of what would appear to be a crow funeral. Not a lot of formality but there is certainly something in their behavior of acknowledgement to a fallen comrade. Their version of a moment of silence.

Crows know a good meal when they see one.,

As soon as their little song of hierarchy is over the the winning crow steps forward and gets to take first pickings. The dead crow will last about two minutes until it is picked clean.

Fallen comrade bullshit.

Reports I’ve heard don’t include witnessed crow cannibalism during crow funerals. Maybe that’s somewhere else in the video, or another posting I missed.

Walker wrote:

Hobbes' Choice wrote:

Dubious wrote: At ~ the 43 minute mark in the URL I provided, and probably no one looked at, there's an example of what would appear to be a crow funeral. Not a lot of formality but there is certainly something in their behavior of acknowledgement to a fallen comrade. Their version of a moment of silence.

Crows know a good meal when they see one.,

As soon as their little song of hierarchy is over the the winning crow steps forward and gets to take first pickings. The dead crow will last about two minutes until it is picked clean.

Fallen comrade bullshit.

Reports I’ve heard don’t include witnessed crow cannibalism during crow funerals. Maybe that’s somewhere else in the video, or another posting I missed.

Crows relish the corpse of their fellows.
The only exception to this rule is if you shoot a crow and hang it from a tree, other crows tend to stay away. It's something I used to do when I was keeping free range chickens at hatching time.
Crows and magpies would eat the baby chicks. But killing and hanging the corpses of both species tended to keep them away.

Hobbes' Choice wrote:

Obvious Leo wrote:Hobbes. Deal with this please.

Obvious Leo wrote: You're forgetting something. The population in the protected areas goes up dramatically before the shooting season even begins.

Ducks migrate.
Ducks that are not dead always return to their nesting areas. Dead ducks tend to stay away.

This doesn't answer the question. Firstly, ducks nest in the spring and not in May , which is late autumn when the duck-shooting month is. Secondly, the vast increase in the duck population in protected areas lasts only for this month. Once the shooting season is over the visiting ducks return to their own feeding habitats and stay there until late April of the following year. Please note that I'm not claiming that the entire duck population of New Zealand displays this behaviour, only that a statistically significant proportion of them do.

Hobbes' Choice wrote:Ducks don't have complex language.

I didn't realise you were fluent in the duck tongue. Animal behaviourists say different.

Hobbes' Choice wrote:

Obvious Leo wrote:I saw a bird being struck by a car and killed instantly. In less than a few minutes about 7 or 8 ravens had gathered around the body but they didn't seem to be doing much of anything except shuffling about gently from foot to foot. They weren't completely silent but they weren't their normal raucous and noisy selves either. Their vocalisations were something I'd never heard before and the closest I could get to describing it would be as a low-pitched "mumble". They didn't touch or peck at the body but rather just formed a rough circle around it. I didn't think to time how long all this took but I'm sure it would have been no more than a few minutes before they all took off simultaneously and headed off in different directions. It was a truly bizarre sight and one I'll never forget because bird behaviour is a subject of great interest to me.

And to what do you attribute this behaviour.
What sort of bird?

I don't attribute this behaviour beyond the probability that it is what it appears to be, a ceremony of some sort. The bird was a raven and in all likelihood a family member because they congregate in extended family groups, usually numbering between 8 and 14.

Hobbes' Choice wrote:As soon as their little song of hierarchy is over the the winning crow steps forward and gets to take first pickings. The dead crow will last about two minutes until it is picked clean.

This is not what happened in the incident I witnessed and I've not read of this happening generally. Perhaps you could provide a reference for this claim because it is not typical of corvid behaviour. None of the assembled birds touched the body at all and they all flew away together. I didn't stick around to see what subsequently happened to the cadaver but I'd be willing to bet that it would have been another species of carrion-eater that got the free feed.

Hobbes' Choice wrote:

Walker wrote:

Hobbes' Choice wrote: Crows know a good meal when they see one.,

As soon as their little song of hierarchy is over the the winning crow steps forward and gets to take first pickings. The dead crow will last about two minutes until it is picked clean.

Fallen comrade bullshit.

Reports I’ve heard don’t include witnessed crow cannibalism during crow funerals. Maybe that’s somewhere else in the video, or another posting I missed.

Crows relish the corpse of their fellows.
The only exception to this rule is if you shoot a crow and hang it from a tree, other crows tend to stay away. It's something I used to do when I was keeping free range chickens at hatching time.
Crows and magpies would eat the baby chicks. But killing and hanging the corpses of both species tended to keep them away.

While "fallen comrade" is overstated, your statement that "crows relish the corpse of their fellows" is total bunk based on everything I read about crows especially when using the word "relish". Any info out there which gives credence to your statement or is this only more free shit from Hobbes?

Not ONE article I ever read says what you said. The opposite is true. Cannibalism is extremely rare among crows and if it happens it's usually due to some form of desperation like starvation. It seems that crows, in fact, are far less likely to enjoy each other as a feast than most humans who really do have a gruesome history of cannibalism.

Dubious. Although I don't claim to be an expert I am at least a fairly knowledgeable amateur on bird behaviour and what you say is quite correct. Cannibalism is almost unheard of amongst any of the corvids and there are also many species of raptors who will eat almost anything EXCEPT others of their own kind. It is also true of many sea-bird species as well as a few predator mammals. Cannibalism is not unique to homo but there can be little doubt that in our evolutionary history we would have been the species who indulged in this practice the most enthusiastically of any. In fact in all likelihood it was a powerful evolutionary selection factor for intelligence. Being able to protect your family from a bloke who's after them with his knife and fork would seem to be a useful adaptive skill.

"Homo hominis lupus est".....Plautus...."man is the wolf of man"

The reason why we're the last and the smartest of the hominids left standing is because we ate all the dumb ones.

Obvious Leo wrote:Cannibalism is almost unheard of amongst any of the corvids and there are also many species of raptors who will eat almost anything EXCEPT others of their own kind. It is also true of many sea-bird species as well as a few predator mammals.

About crows specifically it's said - and you know more about it than I do - that though almost everything is on their menu, there are two things they won't eat. Leafy greens and each other unless they're desperate! In which case they start behaving like humans.

Obvious Leo wrote:The reason why we're the last and the smartest of the hominids left standing is because we ate all the dumb ones.

Doesn't bode well for what's left standing. But if one really likes pork I heard there's a truly plenteous alternative out there!

Perhaps not quite all of them. I could think of a few who may as well go back on the menu.

Obvious Leo wrote:

Hobbes' Choice wrote:

Obvious Leo wrote:Hobbes. Deal with this please.

Ducks migrate.
Ducks that are not dead always return to their nesting areas. Dead ducks tend to stay away.

This doesn't answer the question. Firstly, ducks nest in the spring and not in May , which is late autumn when the duck-shooting month is. Secondly, the vast increase in the duck population in protected areas lasts only for this month. Once the shooting season is over the visiting ducks return to their own feeding habitats and stay there until late April of the following year. Please note that I'm not claiming that the entire duck population of New Zealand displays this behaviour, only that a statistically significant proportion of them do.

Hobbes' Choice wrote:Ducks don't have complex language.

I didn't realise you were fluent in the duck tongue. Animal behaviourists say different.

Hobbes' Choice wrote:

Obvious Leo wrote:I saw a bird being struck by a car and killed instantly. In less than a few minutes about 7 or 8 ravens had gathered around the body but they didn't seem to be doing much of anything except shuffling about gently from foot to foot. They weren't completely silent but they weren't their normal raucous and noisy selves either. Their vocalisations were something I'd never heard before and the closest I could get to describing it would be as a low-pitched "mumble". They didn't touch or peck at the body but rather just formed a rough circle around it. I didn't think to time how long all this took but I'm sure it would have been no more than a few minutes before they all took off simultaneously and headed off in different directions. It was a truly bizarre sight and one I'll never forget because bird behaviour is a subject of great interest to me.

And to what do you attribute this behaviour.
What sort of bird?

I don't attribute this behaviour beyond the probability that it is what it appears to be, a ceremony of some sort. The bird was a raven and in all likelihood a family member because they congregate in extended family groups, usually numbering between 8 and 14.

Hobbes' Choice wrote:As soon as their little song of hierarchy is over the the winning crow steps forward and gets to take first pickings. The dead crow will last about two minutes until it is picked clean.

This is not what happened in the incident I witnessed and I've not read of this happening generally. Perhaps you could provide a reference for this claim because it is not typical of corvid behaviour. None of the assembled birds touched the body at all and they all flew away together. I didn't stick around to see what subsequently happened to the cadaver but I'd be willing to bet that it would have been another species of carrion-eater that got the free feed.

Several post ago I told you that I was no longer going to speculate on a claimed phenomenon whose only source was your imagination.
Since all you have is an anecdote, to which you can arbitrarily add any amount of new data that springs to your fertile imagination, you might was well invent whatever solution and explanation that seems to confirm your oh so selective bias.
Can can then dismiss my perfectly good explanation and throw away Ochham's razor to your heart's content.
So keep your fantasy magical duck-complex message psychic communication system (that they borrowed from bees) to yourself. It does you no favours.
This thread was moribund then, and it has ossified even more since then.

I have spoken my last.

Obvious Leo wrote:The reason why we're the last and the smartest of the hominids left standing is because we ate all the dumb ones.

Fallacy of false analogy.

Dubious wrote: Not ONE article I ever read says what you said. The opposite is true. Cannibalism is extremely rare among crows.

Care to cite that?

Hobbes' Choice wrote:I have spoken my last.

I'm pleased to hear it. You've adequately demonstrated your complete ignorance on the subject of animal behaviour and should probably take the advice of one of my least favourite philosophers.

"Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent".....Ludwig Wittgenstein.