Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Ravens Are Smart

They are terrible pests in Alberta. I shoot everyone that will sit still at under 300 yards

Beautiful rifle. I used to get a bunch every year in quail season years ago with a 22-250 but the ones in this area of the desert had more of a brownish color.

Magpies are also corvids and just as intelligent.

On the way home from an old job along a stretch of dirt road, they used to perch on the power poles. As most of you know, if you are in a vehicle and are moving they stay put, but the moment you stop they’re outta there! To remedy this, we would drive by and slow down while the passenger jumps out on the off side of the vehicle with a 20 ga. That gives you just enough of a distraction because they’re watching the vehicle so the shooter to blast them. After about three passes though they figure out what vehicle it is and take off well before you get in range. Then you have to change trucks and you’re good to go for 2-3 more times. It becomes a bit of a cat and mouse game and they catch on quickly.

Magpies and crows will decoy. Not ravens from what I’ve seen.

A group of crows would hang out in the trees above the tenth tee box at the local track. They knew you had snacks in the cart from stopping at the clubhouse at the turn. While you were teeing off they'd steal your food. I've seen them fly off with muffins and hot dogs.

We learn too. Post a guard over the food.

ironbender: Ravens are indeed smart!
They learn "guns ranges" and "humans with guns" quickly.
Of recent though many have not yet learned the flat trajectory and range of a 204 Ruger Rifle - and those nest robbers are done being smart.
They also peck the eyes out of newborn calves and one of the cattle ranchers I Varmint Hunt on his place pleads with me to diminish their numbers.
Two winters ago he lost 6 newborn calves to being blinded by Ravens.
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

Greetings to you as well, my south neighbor! 😏
I’ve seen similar with gulls opening shells. We had a raven nest out back behind the house last spring/summer. They raised quite a racket, especially at feeding time. Also fun to watch the fake flight to chase eagles that entered the no fly zone. Then one day, it became quite and they were gone. Very interesting to watch.

Haha. Great to know.

I hade a horse ranch in B.C. just above Ferry county in Wash State. and mice were every where ,set traps every night. In the morning i would place the catch on bench out the front of the cabin the Ravens had breaky almost every morning.

When i was in Grande Prairie AB. hunting the ravens would go after grouse that were on the gravel roads getting small gravel for their gullets.

Norm

Have seen them on mountain summits over 10,000ft in the Cascades of WA/OR.

I had two crows when I was a kid. Lol, they are huge trouble makers a lot of fun to watch, they harassed to hell out of the neighborhood cats. LMAO was funny as hell to watch them sneak up on a cat sleeping in the sun and watch it pull the cats tail, all hell would break loose!!

I have watched crows pick up pecans, fly up about 30-40 ft, and drop them on the parking lot. They would do it until the pecan busted then eat it and go get another one.

One of my crows loved to watch the kids play hockey on the pond across the street. He would sit in a tree and caw rapidly when the puck being passed towards the goal.

Our regular mailman would put a dog biscuit on the ground and grind it up so it could be eaten. He liked the crow and never had a problem with him. The mailman was replaced with another. The crow would approach the new guy expecting a treat which he didn't get. The crow decided to badger the new guy while he delivered the mail for the neighborhood. I got a letter from the postmaster saying I had to cage the crow during delivery hours or the neighborhood would not receive mail.

People would visit our house. The crow would show up and land on the ground walking up to size up the new person. He would do a few exploratory taps on the person's shoe and look at him. The owner would grin and say what a cool bird or similar. The crow would then do a very aggressive jab with his beak just above the shoe line where the sock showed and nail the person HARD and look at him again as if to say, How does that feel? Did I get to you?

The crows loved to ride the windshield wipers as the car accelerated. When the speed got to 30 MPH or so the birds would open their wings and bank up and away.

One fun thing they liked was my rolling a coin down the steep asphalt driveway. They would fly to it and catch it but it wasn't easy getting it back. I ended up using washers.

The stories go on and on....

Ravens are the smartest animal in the high desert. It’s said they can communicate with each other and have long memories. They will sit there even after you stop but the moment a rifle comes out the window they all know. Crows are smart not nearly as ravens. Magpies are pretty smart too. But again. Not Raven smart.

My uncle has a pet raven, over 100 years old it belonged to his mom when she was a young, my uncle is 86 now. Smart bird and it sounds just like Pete when it talks.

Buttgig?

Bastards cost me at least one grade point in Ornitholgy. Dyke prof claimed they were only scavengers, I related how I had watched them in obvious hunting/ predation mode over my brother's fields outside Fairbanks, probably for voles or maybe frogs. They would fly, hover, than dive into the overgrown field vegetation for something, then repeat.

Same thing I saw frigate? birds doing in a lagoon in Cancun last week.

Dyke bitch didn't like being refuted. I should have kept my mouth shut. Proving ravens are at least sometimes smarter than some people. In this case, two!

For those interested in reducing their local pop. of ravens, be careful, they're protected under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act.

https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-50/chapter-I/subchapter-B/part-10/subpart-B/section-10.13

They are notorious for raiding other birds nests of eggs and hatchlings.