Remarkable Crow Intelligence: New Insights into Winter Crow Roosts

A fascinating new study published in Science and reported by The New York Times on November 15 reveals that crows can process visual information and make decisions twice as quickly as humans and monkeys in comparable experiments, responding in just 235 milliseconds.

These findings offer intriguing insights into the extraordinary behavior observed at winter crow roosts, where thousands of birds converge each evening. Such rapid decision-making may help explain how crows navigate crowded airspace, coordinate collective movements, select landing spots in densely occupied trees, and respond almost instantaneously to neighboring birds.

At the Lawrence, Massachusetts, winter crow roost, where as many as 15,000 crows gather, these remarkable abilities may contribute to the complex choreography of rooftop staging, synchronized flights, and final settling into communal roost trees.

While the study did not directly examine communal roosting, it provides a compelling new perspective: behind the spectacular movements of thousands of crows are thousands of remarkably efficient brains, continuously processing information and responding to an ever-changing environment.