What Does it Mean to be a Crow? (Part 1)

In the first of a two-part series, host Ken Miller brings the podcast back to basics and answers key questions newer listeners may not have thought about: Why are members of the electromagnetic warfare and spectrum operations community called crows? Why is the moniker so key to understanding our mission and identity?

In today’s episode, Ken is joined by John Mazluff, Professor of Wildlife Science at the University of Washington and author of “Gifts of the Crow” and “In the Company of Crows and Ravens.” Together, they unpack what makes these birds so remarkable and what EMSO warfighters share in common with some of the most intelligent birds in the world.

To learn more about today’s topics or to stay updated on EMSO and EW developments, visit our homepage.

Creators and Guests

Host

Ken Miller

AOC Director of Advocacy & Outreach, Host of @AOCrows From the Crows' Nest Podcast

IB

Editor

Ish Balderas-Wong

Producer

Laura Krebs

TH

Producer

Trevor Hook

What is From the Crows' Nest?

Featuring interviews, analysis, and discussions covering leading issues of the day related to electromagnetic spectrum operations (EMSO). Topics include current events and news worldwide, US Congress and the annual defense budget, and military news from the US and allied countries. We also bring you closer to Association of Old Crow events and provide a forum to dive deeper into policy issues impacting our community.

Ken Miller (00:02)
If you are a Crow, an EMSO warfighter, or from industry or government, or you simply appreciate the field of EMSO and want to learn more about why we call ourselves crows, these episodes are for you. It is my hope that these episodes will give you a better foundation to talk about, advance, and have some fun with the EMSO mission.

Welcome to From the Crows' Nest. I'm your host, Ken Miller from the Association of Old Crows. It's great to be back with you and happy 2026. We ⁓ hope you had a great holiday season and a happy new year. We kick off our new year with some great episodes on the docket. In upcoming episodes, we're gonna talk about directed energy, the need to establish an EMSO force, and we'll take a closer look at the acquisition reform proposals that are out there making their way through the administration and Congress. But first, in today's episode, our first of the year,

We look into what it means to be a Crow. When I'm out talking to leaders in government and industry and military, most are familiar with the fact that we call ourselves Crows, but few understand the story behind the moniker. So yes, the radar operators in the UK during World War II were called Ravens. And yes, there was likely an Americanized adaptation from Ravens to Crows. And yes, even our EW war fighters have played a central role in every major conflict, earning the slogan first and last out.

So a lot of people are familiar with the code name Crows, but to my knowledge, there hasn't been much discussion on why that moniker of Crows is so appropriate to understanding who we are. So today is the first of a two-part series, discuss what it means to be in quote unquote, in the company of Crows.

We're going to follow this episode with a part two when I sit down with a representative from the EMSO task force to discuss how attributes of crows in nature can give us insight into crows as warfighters. So if you are a crow, an EMSO warfighter or from industry or government, or you simply appreciate the field of EMSO and want to learn more about why we call ourselves crows, these episodes are for you. It is my hope that these episodes will give you a better foundation to talk about, advance, and have some fun with the EMSO mission.

So to help me with this, I am pleased to have with me here today, author, professor, and scholar, John Marzluff. He is with me to share ways that crows and ravens and humans interact with each other and the attributes of crows that most represent our community. John is a Denman Professor of Sustainable Resource Sciences and Professor of Wildlife Science at the College of Forest Resources at the University of Washington. He has written several books and articles including Gifts of the Crow,

and In the Company of Crows, both of which were co-authored by Tony Angel. We're going to focus mostly on the latter book today, but we're gonna cover a lot of the themes found in both of these books. So without further ado, I am pleased to welcome John Marzluff to From the Crow's Nest. John, thanks for joining me here on From the Crow's Nest. It's great to have you on the show.

John Marzluff (03:09)
My pleasure, Kim. Looking forward to it.

Ken Miller (03:11)
I've been

really looking forward to it as well. I think this is a very interesting conversation and one that, as I mentioned in the opening, we haven't really had a lot of time to discuss in detail. it's a little bit of a different look into who we are as an association and as a community. And as I was preparing for our conversations, reading your books, it's so fascinating the different connections that there are between crows and nature and our community. And you even actually mentioned, referred to our community in one of your books.

which is a great segue into the conversation. Just to kind of get started, tell us a little bit from your perspective, what got you involved in this field of study? It's very unique, but it's ultimately it's fascinating. And I think it continues to open people's minds to how smart these creatures are.

John Marzluff (04:00)
For sure. Yeah. I mean, I start more as a general biologist, ornithologist, conservation biologist. And we look at lots of different things, how people and nature interact with and how we affect nature, how nature affects us. But the focus on crows and ravens really came about starting in grad school with jays that I studied, which are in the same family, the corvidae. And those birds are engaging, they're social, they have a very complex voice.

They do lots of innovative behaviors and in this way they keep you guessing and interested in watching and following them. And, you know, most of the work we do is kind of boring and watching and listening and spending a lot of time outside with, with these animals. And if they're always doing the same thing gets pretty dull and you don't really stick with it, but with animals like crows and Ravens and their relatives, the different things they do, the ingenuity they display.

just keeps you coming back for more.

Ken Miller (05:00)
So in one of your books, Gifts of the Crow, and for our listeners, we're gonna put links to both of these books on our site so that if you're interested in reading more about it from this perspective, I would encourage, they're both very great, easy reads. I highly recommend them. But in Gifts of the Crow, you mentioned, I wanna read this passage as a way of kind of diving into some more specifics. You write, these animals, crows and ravens, are exceptionally smart.

Not only do they make tools, but they understand cause and effect. They use their wisdom to infer, discriminate, test, learn, remember, foresee, mourn, warn of impending doom, and a host of other tasks. And then you go on to say that these birds have mental toolkits that help them process complex cognitive abilities. Reading that passage sounds like you're talking about

an MSO specialist in our community, those same attributes. And so I want to kind of start by talking a little bit about an issue in our community is are we crows or ravens and what is the difference? And so from your perspective, we used to call ourselves ravens. We now call ourselves crows. Both exist. There's a lot of different genetic relatives to both of those. What is the difference of them and kind of how do you set them apart?

John Marzluff (06:24)
Yeah, I mean, they're both very closely related, the same genus, different species. The raven is about twice the size of a crow, bigger, more solitary, I would say in general, they defend larger space. So there's fewer of them in any given spot that you might visit. They have a completely different vocal repertoire from crows, know, crows caw and they call a lot and a lot and ravens innovate a lot more, I think, in their voice and they have a lot more.

copying of sounds they hear in nature, like dripping water and starting cars and things like that. But they're both extremely well adapted. They're both generalists. They can basically solve any problem nature throws at them in this having a very general toolkit mentally and physically. a very generalized beak and strong feet. They're able to get through to food wherever it's at, under bark, under the ground, or catch it in the air.

So they're very adaptable. And that goes to say, you know, it's basically the same for all of their relatives. That's one thing that sets them apart from other birds. can, they can flex depending on what's available in a given area and find food and find shelter and find places to breed. But some physical attributes of Ravens versus Crows, the Raven has more of a wedge shaped tail. I like to use a quote from one of the bird guides that talked about

Ravens being a beak with a bird and a crow being a bird with a beak. Again, they both have stout beaks that they use in a variety of ways, but the Raven really has a gigantic beak and very powerful. When you catch them, they can inflex some, some harm on you.

Ken Miller (08:07)
As we saw like in a lot of movies depicted, I think, know, Alfred Hitchcock and all those with, you know, all the, there's a lot of fear of what these birds can do, but they're also, some of that's born out of maybe a cultural misunderstanding or at least a almost caricature. doesn't paint the whole picture of who they are.

John Marzluff (08:24)
No, they're both scavengers. And so you see them around dead things and they take on that association. Ravens probably even more than crows in that respect. Crows are much more adapted to open field settings and they specialize not only in working as individuals, but in larger groups as well.

Ken Miller (08:44)
So now geographically speaking, I know we've had this conversation in our community, know, obviously UK, you know, it started out in the UK with Ravens and now in America it's Crows. Is there a geographic difference or focal point of each of these or are they today pretty much everywhere in North American Europe?

John Marzluff (09:01)
much everywhere. There are no relatives in Antarctica, but around the northern hemisphere, ravens, the same species of raven, the common raven exists around the world in the northern hemisphere. The crow is different on every continent. So they're called crows, but they're hooded crows in Europe or carrion crows. They are American crows or fish crows here. So there are different species, crows have speciated more frequently than ravens.

Ken Miller (09:31)
I want to get into the communication in a bit for sure. to start off, I want to dive a little bit more into this mental toolkit that they have and their problem solving abilities. One of the great stories that I, when I was first getting into electronic warfare about 25 years ago, obviously we had a lot of military operations back then from Bosnia to then later Afghanistan and then in Iraq. One of the things that happened was,

in those fights, we started to realize that adversaries could make things complicated and we didn't always have answers. And so it was the EW specialist, the ECMO, the countermeasure officers and so forth. They were able to look at the problem, figure it out, come up with a solution. And oftentimes, Jerry rigged that solution so that they could come up with a successful mission in light of what nature was or the adversary was telling them, or in this case, nature would be telling them.

How did they develop this toolkit, this problem solving technique that seems to be quite separate from a lot of other birds and other animals in nature? How did that develop? And can you give us a little bit more insight into what goes on with how does this function on a day-to-day basis with crows and ravens?

John Marzluff (10:50)
Birds in general have a much more complex brain and cognitive ability than we gave them credit for, for a long time to start with. And crows and Ravens are actually songbirds. And that's a group of the birds, about half of all the birds in the world are songbirds. And that is they're able to hear sounds and maybe change them a bit, but be able to speak them back to defend territory, attract mates, whatever they're doing. That's a particular neural

substrate, a loop in the brain that allows the animal to hear something, consider it, change it, and play it back. Okay. And that loop between different parts of the brain allows birds to have some very nuanced responses to things. They don't always have to react at the time, at the place immediately. They can consider things, they can take their time, they can think about it, they can change not only what they say, but what behavior they're going to do also.

whether they move or not, how they move, whether they look under here or up above for food or safety. So that neural substrate, the ability to not only bring in different sources of information, your hearing, your eyes, your smell, your touch, and integrate those, but also then to integrate them with memories of the past, the way that the emotion of the past or the emotion of the present is influencing those connections in their brain.

and then consider them before they act upon that information. I think that's the key thing that songbirds have been able to do. And most of them do it just to sing, to be able to replicate or to innovate, to sound bigger or better than their neighbors. But corvids use that and other birds use that to innovate all sorts of behaviors. And this is, think, what sets them apart from other species of birds that don't have perhaps that

neuro complexity and from most animals. mean, mammals, reptiles to some extent have the same loops, but amphibians, of course, insects and things like that really don't have that ability to reconsider actions. They might be able to adjust depending on the situation, but not to really think about it like we would and decide what to do. And so that came about because it's adaptive, especially as in your case,

being a generalist and facing lots of different situations, even within your territory. You know, you may specialize on insects during one part of the year and dead animals the next, and you've got to be able to know where those things occur, when they occur, how to exploit them. And the ability to have a kind of a generalized physique that allows you to do things, a lot of things, but maybe not something particularly

spectacular. Like, I mean, a woodpecker can drill through anything and get food inside of a of a dead tree. A crow can whack away at it and make it work. And they'll do that when they think it's, you know, there's nothing else available. Or maybe like on New Caledonia, they'll innovate the ability to use a tool to get into that niche of food. So they solve similar problems that specialists do that are better at it.

but they solve many more problems and usually in much more interesting cognitively based ways.

Ken Miller (14:16)
You discussed a lot of different trials and experiments and things throughout the book to try to see how crows would adapt. And it seemed like there's a common thread with the persistence of the crow to figure it out, which was really fascinating. And that's another attribute of our community is that that need to provide that persistent presence coverage approach to whatever problem.

How does the crow's sense of persistence differ from other animals? what can we, or what have we learned about their persistence that can kind of help us understand how to maximize the same tools in what we do as humans?

John Marzluff (14:58)
It's interesting idea. Again, if you've got a general tool, it can be used in many different ways, but it's not perfect in any one way, right? So the only way to get that to work in different situations is to keep trying. Maybe you hold it a particularly different way or you use it in conjunction with something else to solve this problem. And so being persistent in being able to make that general tool work for you is probably what pushes those birds to

to be so persistent. But they're also they have the luxury. They're very patient, I would say as well. They have the luxury of not having to eat right now. Most of what they eat is hanging around for a while, and they can wait, suss it out, make sure it's safe, and then persist in being able to get into that resource. So it's kind of a combination. They don't have to be in a hurry. And they can they can work it out.

And they've got a general tool that they need to try a variety of different ways to make it work.

Ken Miller (16:02)
I think that's one of things that we talk about all the time is like when we discuss about needing to solve various problems in the spectrum, it's always the time element that trips us up. We never have enough time. And a lot of what we do as an association, we're like, hey, we need to make certain changes to the way we do things from whether it's budget, authorities, whatever, because we need more time. We need to have that time to do that. An interesting element to their persistence that I don't think we usually connect that.

persistence and taking your time are actually, they don't compete. You actually need to go back and forth between the two to make that work. Obviously, a lot of our experience, whether it's an Alfred Hitchcock film or just looking at a bird feeder out in your backyard, you oftentimes see them in, we joke around and it's a murder of crows. They fly together, they do things individually very well, but then they also do things together.

and they communicate together. And so as we kind of move into the communication talk, I just want to get a sense for how crows and ravens interact with other species because, you know, if they're looking at a food source, they might be competing with other scavengers or they might be, they have predators out there. There are some predators. Or there's other things that they need to alert the rest of their flock toward, you know, in terms of threat or availability of food.

how do they work together individually as well as a group and how do they adjust their behavior depending on if they're alone or with others?

John Marzluff (17:36)
Yeah, I think both of them have what we call a fission fusion type of society. So the fundamental unit is really a pair. Once an animal, a crow or a raven is of age and status enough to become mated and have territory, that's the central bond that holds that group together. It's that pair. Then they have offspring for some of the years. So there's a family group that also works together. But then outside of the breeding season,

that strength of the pair bond remains, but the need to defend space against all the others of your species breaks down. And so they can fuse together into larger groups to take advantage, as you say, to perhaps spot predators more efficiently, more eyes to look out, more individuals around you to make sure you're not the one that gets caught by the hawk that strafes the group or to overpower comp-

other competitors at food. So we often see them at situations where there are eagles or larger vultures and things like that, that are vying for the same resource and that are more powerful individually. But as a group, the Ravens or the crows that gather for these sorts of meals can overpower those more dominant, lone individuals. They also can give way as need quickly to stay out of harm's way, but they are relatively big birds.

So they're not as agile as a small bird. So they have a larger distance that's unsafe for them. So they have to be able to react before danger gets too close and being in a group allows them to do that more effectively.

Ken Miller (19:15)
Now, Ken, various species of crows, and I apologize, I'm not a biologist, so if I use these terms wrong, please feel free to correct me. But the different species of crows, know, the American crows, there's a lot of different sizes of crows. Do they talk to each other? Can they bond together to form larger groups or do they have to stay or typically stay within their same genetic group?

John Marzluff (19:40)
the species level they typically respond to and stay within their species group. For sure. It's not uncommon with crows, especially to also have other species join that group. And it's not that crows are inviting them or necessarily lowering their aggression towards them if that's the case. But it's just that there are lots of animals out there that are eavesdropping.

on the communication of other species and crows being very reliable at spotting danger and warning others of danger. They're warning, mainly there are other individuals of their species, mostly their mate or their family or neighborhood group. But other species like chickadees, woodpeckers take advantage of that and they come in and they'll forage and stay close to the group and use that warning system to alert themselves to danger as well.

But as far as communicating with other species, not really, not purposefully.

Ken Miller (20:40)
So certain species, they can listen in and understand what the crows are saying. Is the reverse true where crows can understand what other birds are saying as well? Or how does that language break down when you start to kind of expand the group or the ecosystem?

John Marzluff (20:59)
When it comes to warning calls, especially, think most species recognize other species warning calls. There's a convergence in the frequency and the pulsing of those alarm calls, low frequency scolding, high frequency, you know, alarm of a very dangerous predator that you need to watch out for. Most species give that same sort of call. It's there's a rule and animal behavior of motivational structural rules.

When you're motivated by fear or danger, your voice tends to do the same things. We have a higher pitch or a deeper voice if we want to sound big and threatening. And other animals do that. And I think all animals, and this goes across orders into mammals, eavesdropping on birds and vice versa. They know the motivation of that collar by the sort of frequency and tone and duration.

of the call that's being given and they can react to that and understand that in a general way. But we also hear crows and Ravens give so many unique nuanced calls. Maybe it's a particular clicking sound or whatever that other animals probably don't pay any attention to, but their mate does. Their mate knows, that's, that's my mate. I'm staying in close contact with them as, as we move along.

Ken Miller (22:19)
So they're able to have almost like a coded language for those close to them that others don't hear or recognize or understand, but then there's more common sounds that are more widely understood. I think it's your second book. In the company of crows and ravens, you have a chapter on communications and culture. And you mentioned that crow communications open a door into the crow's mind. They're complex pattern of calls. say it's.

John Marzluff (22:31)
Absolutely.

Ken Miller (22:47)
that suggests that they are mathematically inclined. Can you go into that a little bit more? What do we see in how they communicate that shows us that they are mathematically inclined? Because we have a few mathematicians in our community.

John Marzluff (23:02)
Yeah, it's a bit controversial, I'll say from the outset, but there was a lot of work done on whether this the number of calls, for example, you know, did they give or does that mean something different? And it probably doesn't. But the fact that they do use these calls in a very numerical way suggests that they're at least aware of those differences. And although we can't find

Big differences in those meanings. doesn't mean the birds don't.

Ken Miller (23:33)
Is it kind of like a Morse code or a ⁓ ones and zeros kind of digital approach to like in that sense where they break everything down into a pattern or is that an area where we just have to study more?

John Marzluff (23:45)
we do need to study the patterning a lot more. Most of the software we use to decode what animals are saying is looking at frequency and time and how that varies the musicality of that more than anything. But I think it's more of a continuum than a discrete message they're giving. So it's not that, you know, they're giving Morris code, but they're giving danger, danger, danger, danger, danger. The more they do that, the more dangerous it is. The more

useful it is if it's a food source they found or some other resource they're tapping into or a neat place or they're having fun. They might give more and more of that repetition of a call that we tend to think, gosh, there must be some meeting in six calls versus four. It may just be they're more motivated by whatever it is that's causing them to call when they do it six times and four times. So I think it's more of an additive.

Ken Miller (24:41)
more of an emphasis than it is a code or something like an emotion behind it.

John Marzluff (24:46)
I think so. No,

that's the case with chickadees. Yeah. That that work has been done well with chickadees. They focused on how many D's they give in their call. And so I think it could very well be similar in crows and ravens, but it has not been looked at well.

Ken Miller (25:04)
So with their range and their vision and how they engage in terms of their, the overall environment, you know, we mentioned that they can communicate, hey, there's danger, there's something happening that other species might listen into. Do they ever cooperate with other species in the face of danger? So there are certain predators that would be predators to any bird, i.e. maybe an eagle or something, where...

Maybe there's not enough crows to take it on, but enough other birds that might be able to, like, do ever team up or how does that, the interoperable part of corvid behavior?

John Marzluff (25:44)
Mostly they team up with others of their own species. There's one interesting reason they would do that. They're not just teaming up to get rid of danger. They're demonstrating to others of their species that they can do this, that they're top top dog here. And that's a, that's a big part of being a crow or a raven is demonstrating to others your ability. And that goes a long way in terms of their cultural chutzpah as being a bird. You know, if they are not

If they're viewed as being a subordinate in their society, they are last to eat. They're perhaps most at risk being outside of the group at roosting time, things like that. So they're always demonstrating their abilities to others. And that comes in part when they're ganging up on another species to drive it away. That's dangerous to them. Now I've often seen gulls join in with crows or ravens that are scolding the eagle, as you said, and

they're okay with that. mean, the more the better to move that predator on, right? That's the first and foremost reason for doing those.

Ken Miller (26:51)
They

don't necessarily seek out that help. I don't think so. They accept it if it's there, yeah. So culturally, mean, obviously crows and ravens are very important generally to the ecosystem. know, if any species becomes extinct, the consequences reverberate. You go into a lot of detail throughout both of your books really about how culturally we have really adopted a lot of...

pro-imagery stories, relations in terms of how we connect to culture. A lot of times when we're thinking about culture and wildlife and crows are a part of it. have daughters, ⁓ young readers, and I've introduced them to one of my favorite authors who wrote some children's, young adult books. it's about, they're actually from Seattle. It's called Wildwood and Colin Malloy, who is a Decemberist musician, but his books, so they talk about like,

getting carried off by crows and the crow imagery even in his books is very prevalent. so I was preparing for this interview yesterday and my daughter was reading her book and we were talking about how, like she's like, I'm reading about crows too. And it's it's everywhere. How important are crows to the ecosystem that they are in? Obviously, you know, like in terms of keeping the ecosystem growing and flourishing.

John Marzluff (28:13)
They're what we call a kind of mid level general predator. So they're not the apex predator that that is controlling a lot of species beneath them and keeping the ecosystem in check. They are a species that functions at the middle level where they can become super abundant and have destructive effects on the ecosystem. And they can become super rare and have destructive effects by not being there. So their main.

purpose basically is things like seed dispersal, recycling of nutrients and energy in terms of decomposing things, perhaps also keeping some insects from, ⁓ out breaking and having devastating effects on the ecosystem. But as generalists, they don't have, they have more of a even effect on the ecosystem than a pointed effect like a top predator or a plant, for example, a consumer or producer. So

They don't have as dramatic of an effect. Their loss will certainly, could be that loss could be filled by other species in the ecosystem. But when they become super abundant, which many are now, they can have, you can see the overwhelming effect that they can have on the ecosystem. And usually it's not in a great way for the rest of this, for the diversity of the system.

Ken Miller (29:35)
So in the MSO community, one of our challenges is always getting leadership, senior leaders, whether it's military government or even just folks who kind of control portfolios and industry or whatever, to embrace the importance and the role of EW and the EW specialist in solving the problem or coming up with the mission and getting the right resources and authorities to it.

The reason why I'm asking this, and it's a little bit around about, so I apologize for maybe the wordiness of this, but what I'm trying to get at is what behaviors of crows can we learn from that would help us understand how to interact with a complex ecosystem of predators and friends and challenges that sometimes seem

to be pushing back against wanting us there? Because I mean, obviously even growing up, you're out your backyard, how many families like, get those crows away, they're eating the food of the other birds and all that other stuff. There's this love hate relationship with them that people don't always know how to approach. So what can we learn from the way crows are that say, hey, we need to adopt these attributes when we deal with our society or our ecosystem.

John Marzluff (30:58)
Well, maybe the first thing that comes to my mind is to demonstrate your skill and your abilities that are beyond what, what most others can do in that. And crows and Ravens do that. And they capture our imagination and our support when they do those sorts of things. When we see them using tools, which is weird for a bird, it's like, wow, they're, they're important. So demonstrating the skillset and the uniqueness of that, knowing what others know.

Crows and Ravens know that. So being able to anticipate what that move is going to be, or maybe if it's somebody up the chain, what story they're going to try to sell, then you basically can understand how to position yourself well in that, either in that story or in that combat arena. And then being able to innovate and do a lot with little, that's kind of what Crows and Ravens do. They have a

Again, this kind of general body plan. It's not great speed. It's not great power, but it's a little of both and being able to innovate and use that general less fit system to, basically crack anything that's out there is a great skill. The other thing I mentioned with scolding, don't be afraid to show others, you know, that you are good. You've got to blow your horn a little bit. And I imagine your community,

doesn't like to do that much. They're, very keen on listening and understanding and solving in the technology that it needs to do that. And not so much tooting their own horn, but sometimes, especially in today's world, if you're not doing that, people are getting by you. Other, other groups are getting the resources that you probably need that you could, you could use very effectively. Crows and Ravens do a lot of that. They show off a lot. They solve things in a variety of ways.

Ken Miller (32:53)
We're recording this in early December and so we're getting ready for our annual show convention next week down in DC. We'll be showing off a little bit next week. By the time listeners hear this, we'll be past the event. I think that that's really interesting because when we do these types of shows, mean, the idea is we have to demonstrate, we have to experiment, we have to show people what we can do and how fast we can do it. You mentioned they do more with less. I mean, that is kind of a mantra that has followed our community.

for decades is just we can figure out how to solve a problem with less than the average person out there. so we can do more of it with less. We enable a lot of things to happen because we can take care of certain things more efficiently. But the problem for us has always been to get that credibility or that legitimacy and not be misunderstood by others. so kind of to wrap this up, I mean, we could talk for hours and, but just to kind of

put a bow on it for now, the cultural connections between crows and humans is very rich. What is a misconception or a connection, any sort of connection, cultural connection that we have with crows that we need to kind of adjust to get much better fidelity in terms of our understanding of crows and their role in an ecosystem? What is something that we should be really focusing in on understanding better?

than we have in the past in terms of that population.

John Marzluff (34:21)
I think we understand pretty well their command of their system. And that's why we think of them as gods and creators in a lot of our societies. But maybe what we don't understand so well is the kind of nuanced way that they go about living in a world that changes very rapidly and their ability to keep up with that change with humans now having such effects on the world.

The crows and ravens have been able to stay right with us the whole way. Our whole existence, we've had crows and ravens with us. And we have changed from being scavengers to farmers to urban dwellers. And the crows and ravens have taken every bit of it in stride and used it to their advantage. And using it to their advantage not only shows their adaptability, but it also shows how they're mirroring back the effects we have on the ecosystem.

And they're really showing us what we are doing to the system. We're making it simpler. We're making it dominated by these mid-level actors in the ecosystem. Coyotes and crows, similar gulls, similar and those sorts of things. And if we want a more diverse, richer system, we might want to cut back on that influence. Okay. They're telling us

We're doing really well. Maybe we shouldn't be doing quite this well. And that's the message to people too. We're doing really well, but we're probably doing too well for the health of the system. And crows and ravens are mirroring that back.

Ken Miller (36:00)
We talk a lot in our community about how the fact that, you even today, the spectrum touches every single person and it's always been there. We only have learned really how to manipulate it over the last couple hundred years, electromagnetic energy, but it's a part of who we are. It's been with us for our, well, we exist because of it. So it's not going anywhere. When you look at the history of the connection between crows and humans, is that...

one of the reasons why, I mean, since they learned from us and they mirror us and in some ways we probably mirror them too. I'd be interested in like what we've learned from the crows. Have we adapted anything from them that we're like, this is how we, this might be where we get it. But seeing that interaction, is that part of the reason why we're not viewed by them as predatory or are we? It's almost seems like a peaceful coexistence, maybe a little nuisance in there, but it's not.

were not adversarial in our coexistence. like, does that play into how we relate to each other? The fact that there's few species other than humans, of course, have been around together experiencing the environment day to day. There's not many examples of that. So how has that affected what we think today and how we act today?

John Marzluff (37:18)
Well, one of the simple things we probably have taken away from some of the birds, crows and ravens and others of their family is the storage of food for later use. Yeah, maybe we came up with that too, but I bet some of the first farmers that sat around and saw Jay's stashing acorns around or, you know, cashing food from a carcass would have thought, that's a pretty good idea. We should probably do that too. And so we have learned a lot from how this animal.

survives. We're generalists also. We use our brains to solve problems. Crows and ravens use their brains to solve problems rather than their physique so much.

Ken Miller (37:56)
you know, in terms of the history of our connection and the fact that we have observed each other over the course of thousands of years, what does that say for like kind of moving forward into the future? Like where, how should we continue to interact with them and where do you see this connection going?

John Marzluff (38:17)
If you think about how this connection has changed through time, initially we were probably very competitive with them for the same resources. We were scavengers, they were scavengers. We were farmers, they were stealing our food. So there was a lot of competition and the need to be in an arms race with them to out-compete them with, regardless of what we were doing, whether we growing things or scavenging things or harvesting things. Through time, we have now developed

I think, especially in urban settings, more of a ⁓ friendly relationship, let's say, certainly not ⁓ a combative one, mainly because we've been limited in the ability to combat them in an urban area. There are places, think of Tokyo, for example, where crows are nesting in their power infrastructure and shorting out the system. And there's a literally an army that goes out and disassembles

crow nests so that they don't have that effect on the power system. So there are situations where we are still very combative with them. But in a lot of situations, we're not. And because we don't act aggressively towards the birds, they don't act fearful of us. And they might even become a little more tolerant and tame. There are places in Seattle, for example, that you can be walking around crows and they're around you like puppies all the time. And they're not fearful because we don't harm them.

but they are quick to adapt their behavior to how we act. And if we're aggressive, they become fearful. If we're not, they become tamer. And so it's like a lot of species we interact with. If we treat them right, they'll treat us in a friendly way as well. And we could enjoy a much richer interaction going forward. And I think that's what we're seeing in a lot of urban settings and maybe moving even further into the future, we'll have crows that are much more comfortable.

in proximity to us and therefore kind of reveal some of their more interesting behaviors at close range as well. Some of their vocalizations, some of their mannerisms.

Ken Miller (40:24)
Well, John, this has been a very enlightening conversation. I really appreciate you taking time. And again, for our listeners, you have two books that we referenced in this episode, both co-authored by yourself and Tony Angel. The first is Gifts of the Crow, How Perception, Emotion and Thought Allow Smart Birds to Behave Like Humans. And then the second one is In the Company of Crows and Ravens, both phenomenal insight into the species, but also just hearing

you talk, mean, almost every attribute of the pros that we discuss relates to our community is just a fascinating look into it. So I really do appreciate you taking time to join me here on From the Crows' Nest.

John Marzluff (41:03)
My pleasure, Ken. Good luck.

Ken Miller (41:07)
That will conclude this episode From the Crows' Nest. I'd like to thank my guest, John Marzluff, for joining me here on the show. Again, this is part one. ⁓ Part two will be released shortly and we are going to be sitting down, taking this conversation and talking about this conversation with a representative from the EMSO task force so that we can have more of an insight into how war fighters think like Crows. That episode will be out very shortly.

As always, please take a moment to review, share, and subscribe to this podcast. We always enjoy hearing from our listeners, so please take a moment to let us know how we're doing. That's it for today. Thanks for listening.