Crows Never Forget A Face

This scientist watches them watching us.

- Patricia Nikolina Clark

Wearing a caveman mask, Dr. John Marzluff walks across the campus at the University of Washington in Seattle. Crows circle and squawk. They dive at him, then swoop away.

Beneath the mask, he smiles. Days before, he and his students had put on caveman masks, then captured crows and placed colored plastic bands on their legs. Then they released the unhappy birds. “We always knew that crows recognize us, but could we show it?” says Dr. Marzluff. He is a professor at the university, where he is known affectionately as the Crowman.

When the researchers strolled around campus without the masks, the crows they had caught and banded did not react to them. But when the same humans walked by while wearing the masks, the crows scolded loudly and dived at their “enemies.” The birds had remembered the faces of the people who had captured them!

“Crows are constantly watching us,” Dr. Marzluff says. “They look, they think, they eyeball you, sizing up the situation.”