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Video of Wild Crow Tool Use Caught With Tail Cams
willatnewscientist writes "Scientists from the University of Oxford have recorded New Caledonian crows using tools in the wild for first time. The footage was captured by attaching tiny cameras to their tail feathers. The wireless cameras weigh just 14 grammes and can be worn by the crows without disturbing their natural behavior. The trick has provided the first direct evidence of the birds' using tools in the wild and may represent an important development in animal behavior studies. 'The camera also contains a simple radio transmitter that reveals the crows' location. This lets the researchers track them at a distance of few hundred metres, so that they can catch the camera's video signal with a portable receiving dish. Up to 70 minutes of footage can be broadcast by the camera's chip, and the camera is shed once the bird moults its tail feathers.'"
That's pretty neat, we have a lot of crows where I work and I've observed ravens at campgrounds which are very well practiced in employing ingenious methods of
WHAT! WAIT!
14 gram video camera? 70 minutes of video footage? Whoa! What's the real news for nerds story here? Damn, I need one of those cameras!!! (c= I've been fiddling with converting these webcams for astro imaging I wonder what I could take from the top of (or bottom of) a kite or one of those tiny helicopters. W0000t
Crows, yeah, very clever birds. Probably could learn a lot from them... wow, neat camera...
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Crows Gone Wild video.
Dog is my co-pilot.
The wireless cameras weigh just 14 grammes and can be worn by the crows without disturbing their natural behavior.
It doesn't disturb them? What is the airspeed velocity of an unladen crow?
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
...to get this damn camera unstuck from my tail?!?
~~~~~~~
"You are not remembered for doing what is expected of you." - Atul Chitnis
I for one, welcome our tool-using crow overlords.
No, no, 'e's uh,...he's resting.
"I may be full of crap about this game, and I may be wrong, and that's fine." -Jack Thompson
Now I'll have to wear a hat to the Home Despot...
rj
Sorry, but the great scientist Gary Larson documented this phenomenon years ago. See http://www.curiosities.com/sp/CD6044.asp?afID=goocd6044&img=L (Sorry, I couldn't find a better link)
I hate crows. Whenever I see crows dropping nuts onto the street, I run in and steal the nuts. Then I wave my fists at the stupid crows, shout insults, and cackle hysterically. Ah, good times.
I thought the camera added 20 pounds. I guess black really is slimming.
...but he's got B*d L*ght!
Don't tell me to get a life. I'm a gamer; I have LOTS of lives!
Did anyone else notice the Bird taking a dump at the very beginning of the clip???
Letter To Iran
THOU SHALT NOT DEFACE THE FJORDS.
Plus He got an award for Norway, largely because of the fiddly bits around the fjords
Ice Cream has no bones.
Sorry, I had to ask.
/. readers' hearts: penguin video!
Semi-seriously, imagine the applications for this technology. Trained crows getting shots of places that only crows can go. Imagine video of Ballmer chair throwing events, and other clandestine Microsoft sporting events visible currently only to crows. We don't want that kind of footage locked down in Microsoft Windows Media formats. We want to be able to exchange our crow footage easily via the Internet Archive, so that we can incorporate our crow footage into community-based video projects, such as the Internet Archive's Digital Tipping Point Video Collection, which uses Ogg Theora formats.
Soon, YouTube soon will be hosting crow video feed competitions. We don't want that precious footage locked down, either.
Which raises the next question, of course, and it is more near and dear to
that the crows were using tools to try and pry the cameras off their asses.
Saying your "phone ran out of batteries" is like saying your "car ran out of gas tanks".
Speaking of which...
Do you think crows debate if humans are intelligent?
Apology to Ubuntu forum.
Great, Crows using tools! Now they have an even cheaper source of labor to outsource American jobs to.
Crows clearly have a basic understanding of caws and effect!
I thought you might have figured it out by now-
The article only barely hints at it, but those cameras
were actually built by and attached to by the crows themselves!
They are reportedly now building tiny lethal lasers to attach to their legs
I for one, bow... well, you get the point.
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- aqk
F U