Video of Wild Crow Tool Use Caught With Tail Cams 203
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.'"
Fascinating (Score:5, Funny)
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...
Waiting for the inevitable (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Waiting for the inevitable (Score:3, Funny)
question (Score:5, Funny)
It doesn't disturb them? What is the airspeed velocity of an unladen crow?
Now which tool do I use... (Score:5, Funny)
obligitary (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Old News (Score:5, Funny)
No, no, 'e's uh,...he's resting.
Re:question (Score:5, Funny)
Oh, great (Score:4, Funny)
rj
Re:Now which tool do I use... (Score:5, Funny)
Coming up on the Crow News Network: Dumpster left open behind McDonalds
Yeah, once they discover TV it'll all be over for them, too.
Re:question (Score:3, Funny)
Huh? I-- I don't know that. Auuuuuuuugh!
Caught on camera years ago (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Waiting for the inevitable (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Old News (Score:5, Funny)
14 grammes?! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:So... (Score:3, Funny)
...but he's got B*d L*ght!
Holy Crap (Score:3, Funny)
Re:question (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Old News (Score:3, Funny)
Plus He got an award for Norway, largely because of the fiddly bits around the fjords
Yeah, cool, but does it run on... (Score:3, Funny)
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 [archive.org], 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
Re:obligitary (Score:4, Funny)
I can only assume... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Old News (Score:4, Funny)
Do you think crows debate if humans are intelligent?
Re:Fascinating (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Waiting for the inevitable (Score:3, Funny)
That's because there's a misleading typo in the headline... it should read "Video of Wild Crow Stool..."
Just what we needed (Score:3, Funny)
Re:I for one... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Fascinating -but it gets worse (Score:2, Funny)
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.