Wild hooded crow talking

People will think that this is an April Fools stunt but it isn't. This is a purely wild grey or hooded crow in Szczesliwickiego park in Warsaw, and you will hear it attempt to imitate "hello" several times in this unedited footage. The closest attempt is at 1:03. Befor my daughter started talking to it, it was making the standard "caw" call at other crows, and then I noticed how it interrupted its pattern to imitate the word "hello" Sophie was saying to it, and got my camera out.

Incidentally, the standard name for this bird in English is 'hooded crow', but it is a rarity in England. It appears in Scotland and Ireland, and the Irish call it the 'grey crow'. I called it the grey crow here out of impetus, as the Poles call it "siwa wrona" which means grey crow. The scientific name is Corvus cornix, if that's any help!

Category:

Pets & Animals

Tags:

• Talking
• hooded
• crow
• thus
• quoth
• the
• raven
• Park
• Szczesliwickiego
• Warszawa

[mx568]

it is commonly known ( among birders) that crows can "speak" far more words and phases than any other bird (yes more than Parrots). You don't see it much because they don't live very well in captivity, and for complex words they must have their tongue split (ouch!).

[usenetposts]

@mx568 I can well understand it. I'm learning Czech, and if I say "Strc prst krz krk" I feel like someone's split my tongue too.

[weemikey70]

This is a typical example of a layperson anthropomorphosising this wonderfully intelligent bird. It sounded nothing like 'hello'. Forgive my candour, but you are a fool for thinking so and for projecting your mind onto that of the bird.You obviously have no experience of prolonged contact with such birds, for if you had you would know that this is just one of its many various calls. I put it down to a 'moment of marvel' from which you cannot, sadly, extricate yourself from your own specious ego.

[usenetposts]

That's your opinion, but you cannot prove it. It is a mere argument by assertion. Numerous people have agreed that crows do imitate human speech, and I don't know who you think you are to refute this view without more concrete arguments.

[BitVyper]

Well, their speech abilities aren't as well documented as parrots. One thing is for sure though; when they DO speaking, they can sound human to an extent that is downright creepy.

[euromerc]

You know, there's plenty of crow-hunting videos for you to visit, instead of parking your sorry-ass here and being negative.

[Raditzwyvern]

@mx568 The slipping of crow tongues to talk is actually an urban legend. Crows don't use their tongue to vocalize like parrots do, but rather manipulate the sound in the throat via the voice box. They can speak perfectly fine without mutilation. 83

[RedMalice25]

I love these birds so much but yeah. Even if they can mimic human speach its pretty limited.

[erra404]

My brother used to have a pet crow that said, "Hello and Play ball!" This one could have been someone's escaped pet.

[031doolittle]

i like this one *****

[Jernespand]

fascinating :)