Living in the country you get to meet plenty of wild neighbors.

One of our long time neighbors is Blackie and his brothers. They are members of the Crow Family, known as corvids, among the smartest birds in the world. Blackie and his family have been visiting our wooded lot for years and have helped themselves to any bird treats that we have put out for the neighborhood flocks.

What makes Blackie so interesting to us is that it is obvious that he recognizes us among humans and will freely come into the yard when we are out and about. If he does not recognize a car or person, Blackie and his clan keep their distance, which is likely a good survival skill for a crow.

I belong to the Audubon Society and their studies and articles on birdlife are informative and insightful of how humans and birds have intertwined lives.

Crows are one species that have shown the capability to use tools, play tricks, teach others new things and have tremendous memories for danger situations and feeding opportunities.

In our case Blackie has a sweet tooth for cookies and crackers. Old bread or baked goods are immediately carried away by the crow family. Squirrels, rabbits, deer and turkey have no interest in such offerings. Crows and Jays prefer such treats, they are quickly consumed or carried away and it is amazing how quick the word gets out.

Research shows that the corvid family make up the intelligentsia of the bird world. Relative to body size, their brains are as big as those of chimpanzees and gorillas.

University of Washington Wildlife Biologist John Marzluff has been studying crows for four decades and has been using modern technology to test their brain capacities by scanning them with a PET Scanner.

Marzluff and his students have dressed with a mask of a Neanderthal man to work around the crows as they have terrific memory for experiences. Crows need only one experience to form a long lasting memory of who can be trusted and who can’t.

This is essential knowledge when you are dealing with humans who might either feed you or shoot you.

The crows in your neighborhood know your block better than you do. They know safe areas and they know areas of danger.

Crow hunters know that a hunting set is frequently changed or abandoned after one hunting experience. Hunters use a crow’s natural enemy the owl and hawk decoys to bring crows into shotgun range. It doesn’t work long after the first go around or two, the crows keep their distance and warn off other crows of the danger ahead. When they do locate a hawk or owl in the neighborhood they are relentless in ganging up on the predator and driving it out of their area.

Early experiments in the 1990s and 2000s demonstrated that mammals could recognize individual human faces, voices and scents. Anyone around animals long enough would likely concur that humans are recognizable to animals.

Marzuff decided to test crows for the same qualities by using masks and interacting with crows. Anyone associated with a neutral task was generally ignored by the crows. However, when the Neanderthal mask was used, the one that the crows associated with negative experiences, they reacted with a major crow fallout of angry calls and dive bombs.

It wasn’t just the earlier captured birds that responded, apparently others remembered the caveman mask and didn’t like it one bit. The crows had communicated an individual experience into a group experience.

So crows remember food sources, safe neighborhoods, dangers and villains to their lives and share that information to other crows. Crows have teachable moments, in which the crows collectively make associations. They only need one experience to make a long lasting memory. Crows share information which allows individuals to adapt to rapid environmental changes much faster than if they learned on their own.

It is like social media using “Like us” to describe a good experience. Crows pass on the likes and dislikes so that other crows do not have to experience it themselves.

I will likely look at Blackie and his brothers in a different light as I now know they share news in a crow social network about their neighborhood experience with their flock friends.

Jay Hewitt is an outdoors columnist for the Butler Eagle.