10/01/2026
You chased me off your lawn with a broom. Three years ago.
I remember. 🐦⬛
I'm an American crow, and I don't forget a face. Researchers at the
University of Washington proved it: they wore a distinctive mask while
briefly catching a few of us, and for more than seventeen years
afterward, we scolded and dive-bombed anyone wearing that mask.
Not just the crows they caught. The ones who only WATCHED learned it
too. And then our children learned it — crows who hadn't even hatched
when it happened.
So yes. I told my family about you.
🧠 AND BEFORE YOU CALL ME A PEST AGAIN:
I make my own tools. Not just use them — MAKE them. Give me a straight
piece of wire and I'll bend it into a hook to fish food out of a tube.
Almost nothing else on earth does that.
I solve multi-step puzzles about as well as a seven-year-old child.
Some of my relatives drop hard nuts onto roads, let passing cars crack
them open, and wait for the traffic light to change before walking out
to collect the pieces.
When one of us dies, we gather around and make a great deal of noise.
Researchers think we're working out what killed them, and where — so
it doesn't happen to the rest of us.
And while you're busy calling me a nuisance, I'm walking across your
lawn pulling up the grubs that eat your grass roots. You're welcome.
🥜 BUT HERE'S THE THING:
I remember kindness exactly as well as I remember a broom.
Leave out a few unsalted peanuts in the shell. Same spot, same time.
Within a few weeks I'll know who you are, and I'll start watching for
you.
And some of us bring gifts. People who feed crows regularly have found
buttons, beads, bits of glass and small shiny things left neatly where
the food usually goes. Deliberately. For them.
A wild bird, choosing to give you a present.
So think about how you want me to remember you. Because I will — and so
will my grandchildren.