Crows have fun on snow-covered car

I watched this full-screen and loved it -- the shades of gray, the falling snow, the playful crows. Thank you to the person who captured this on video!

(Via Arbroath)

Mark Frauenfelder is the founder of Boing Boing and the editor-in-chief of MAKE and Cool Tools. Twitter: @frauenfelder. Come and hear Mark speak at the ALA conference in Chicago on July 1.

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The Snowden Principle

hyph3n

I’m no neuroscientist, but it looks to me that the crows are mimicking human behavior. Rolling in the snow and using a tool to “shovel”? Is there a animal behavior reason they would be doing this?
- duncancreamer
  
  Yes. It’s called playing.
  - http://www.facebook.com/postelwait Cameron Postelwait
    
    if people knew how much joy animals could feel they might shoot at them less.
    - theophrastvs
      
      I admire your optimism and would like to subscribe to your newsletter
    - Boundegar
      
      Or they may shoot them more. I think a randomized study is called for.
  - hyph3n
    
    Not exactly the answer I was after. Apparently, you are no neuroscientist either.
    - euansmith
      
      I thought maybe it was trying to get rid of fleas or something; but Crows are pretty darn smart so maybe it was frolicking in the snow. The Corvids are my favourite of birds.
      
      I watched this video to the accompaniment of the Throbbing Gristle track from higher up today’s posts. It makes for a very freaky juxtaposition.
    - s2redux
      
      Seems like a typical avian dust bath, albeit with ersatz dust. Plus, sliding FUN |
    - http://www.facebook.com/sheri.l.williamson Sheri L. Williamson
      
      “Play” is exactly what animal behaviorists call it and exactly what it is.
- Snig
  
  Possibly digging freeze dried bugs out of an intake valve/ base of the windshield.
- phuzz
  
  I’m not sure about crows, but chickens roll in dust in a similar manner to clean off their feathers and remove fleas etc.
Fantome_NR

Seems to me like whatever the most frolicky crow has in his beak could be some kind of crownip. But I can’t be 100% certain from these pixels.
- A Viescas
  
  go home crow you are drunk?
arcduke

Some might recall another video that went around several months ago of a crow happily(?) sledding down a roof. Crows are rad.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dWw9GLcOeA
John Deever

FWIW the caption reads “Stoned Crows.”
Nadreck

Hey! It’s Huginn and Muninn! What a wacky pair!
OriGuy

Crow making snow angel at 0:40?
- Gerald Mander
  
  crow angel
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_GVKHNINUD55NXFN4TRNHMBRDB4 Alexandros

I love this one.
Crows are some of my favorite creatures, Its always fun and interesting to watch them.
- bnschlz
  
  We have a ‘pet’ crow that has practically lived in our backyard for the past 3 months. It sits on our kids’ sand-and-water play table all the time and … plays with stuff. Spinning the wheels, splashing in the water, all the while crowing to its mates to come and join in the fun! Sadly it doesn’t seem to have convinced anyone else yet.
-hms-

The full-screen recommendation was a good one. I got pretty immersed. great sound too. This reminded, in spirit, me of some great Canadian animation, quiet, playful, muted and beautiful. In the category for best incidentally beautiful and authentically spontaneous web short goes to…
http://twitter.com/Doctorakgo Mathieu A.

I’m not sure he’s playing. He may be rolling down the windshield from lack of stability more than sheerful enjoyment. Throughout the video, he’s trying to eat a bit of food from his right claw, since for some reason, he seems to dislike eating it from the snowy ground.
- creesto
  
  Maybe, but the way that the crow just lays on sideways on the snow…really unusual
- A Viescas
  
  Except there’s no reason to be on the car on the first place, let alone close enough to the edge to roll; a crow who lost its balance would flap its wings to stabilize rather than roll; and finally the crow seems to repeat the act several times on purpose.
  
  “Dust bath” may be a reasonable explanation for this behavior, but “just falling” probably isn’t.
Paul Dmytrewycz

Ah yes, the Moscow crows. We called them “mili-crows” when I lived there in the late 80′s because their gray/black coloring made them look like the uniforms of Soviet paramilitary police of the day. The story (as apocryphal as it may be) is that Moscow had a serious pigeon problem, pooping on the statues of Lenin & such, so they brought in these crows that apparently eat pigeon eggs. Now they have a crow problem.

And that’s… one to grow on.
Tom Ames

This video (along with the one of the cat’s first experience of snow and the baby elephant playing in the surf) validates the existence of the internet.
http://scruss.com/blog/ scruss

” … I’m afraid I was very, very drunk …”
adonai

Winter is coming.
- mutantrose
  
  Thanks for reminding me of a comic at The Oatmeal: http://theoatmeal.com/comics/winter_is_coming
http://www.peterbagge.com/ Buddy Bradley

What make of car is that? I’m guessing Zastava, but I really don’t know…
fiatrn

BuddyB – It is a Lada sedan, the Russian version of a Fiat 124 Sedan.
ocker3

WTF do they put in the water in Russia? It makes the animals act Really weird!
Camp Freddie

I am shocked and appalled that I am the first pedant to point out that these are not crows but jackdaws. They are too small to be crows, and jackdaws have grey patches around their neck and breast, whereas crows are all-black.

Very cute though…
jhertzli

Crows just wanna have fun.