That's so raven

Hey, this is Outside In, a show where curiosity and the natural world collide. I am Nate Hedgie, here with producer Marina Hanke. Hello. So Marina, I brought you in here because I want to tell you this wild story. Okay. So the other day, I was at this animal rescue center in Sitka, Alaska. When we go in there, I'm going to have you stand sort of in the corner. I'm going to introduce you, get you walking around a little bit. This place used to be a community college, but each of the classrooms now has an animal in it. Okay. And I'm there with this trainer. Her name is Sophie Nillis. This is Onyx's enclosure. I've adorned it with different things. Thanks, Onyx. Hi, buddy. I always say hi. Give him a heads up. Come on, Inks. Can you just have me stay in the corner? You can come right over here. Perfect. Oh, God, Nate. I can't even imagine what you're in front of right now. I go into the room, and then hanging out near this wall is Onyx. Onyx, speak. Good boy. That sounds like a dog. Like a bark, like a little ruff. It is not a dog. It is a raven. Making that? No, I just assume it's a ca-caw, caw. No, no, no, no, no, no. Much more guttural. When you hear the word raven, what is the vibe? What do you think of? When I imagine a raven, I think of very big black wings that are swooping down in a German forest. That's my raven vibe. Very accurate when it comes to vibes of ravens, at least in Western culture. They are an ominous symbol of death. They are considered unclean by the Bible. A group of ravens, Marina, is called an unkindness. An unkindness? So if you're like seeing a bunch of ravens, you're like, that's an unkindness. I've also heard a conspiracy of ravens. But I am here to tell you that I think we have gotten it all wrong. I think that ravens are some of the most interesting, coolest, complex, and most importantly, smartest animals out there. This is going to be a hard sell, Nate, IG, because I'm spooked by them. I'm spooked. I'll say it now. So sell me. I'm ready. That is my mission. And to do that, I am going to bring back our series, Holy Scat. It's where we take a deep dive into parts of the natural world that are often overlooked, underappreciated, misunderstood. We have done antlers, opossums, groundhogs, coyotes, and now... Both the raven, nevermore. Starting a business can be overwhelming. You're juggling multiple roles, designer, marketer, logistics manager, all while bringing your vision to life. Shopify helps millions of business sell online. Build fast with templates and AI descriptions and photos, inventory and shipping. Sign up for your one euro per month trial and start selling today at shopify.nl. That's shopify.nl. It's time to see what you can accomplish with Shopify by your side. Starting a business can be overwhelming. You're juggling multiple roles, designer, marketer, logistics manager, all while bringing your vision to life. Shopify helps millions of business sell online. 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It's time to see what you can accomplish with Shopify by your side. hey this is outside in a show where curiosity in the natural world collide i am nate hedgy here with producer marina hanky okay so marina yes pop quiz can you give me three differences between ravens and crows i think a raven is bigger than a crow ding ding ding ding ding that is correct really yeah yes okay number two i'm gonna just keep going with this with this good vibes it's going um i think that a raven has sharper talons than a crow i don't know if that's the case but i like it i like it i'm gonna look that up and number three the third classic difference between raven and crow i love the confidence uh you know it's the only way i know how to be uh it is a difference in their diet is one only eating meat and one is eating vegetation perhaps i love that vegan crows out there no that's not the case all right so You got the size, right? Ravens are bigger. Another difference is that crows are very social. Ravens a little bit more solitary. And then ravens and crows, they also have very subtly different calls. So I'm going to play you two calls, and I want you to kind of tell me what you hear and the differences, you know, because you're a great birder. Yep, I'm on it. All right, here we go. Ah, ah, ah. Ah, ah, ah. Do you want me to guess which one I think is a crow or a raven? Please do. I think the first one is a raven? You were wrong. Oh, man. Ravens, a little bit more versus. Native, you consider bird voice acting if this doesn't work out? Once AI takes over this podcast, I'll just be making bird sounds. Okay, so that's the difference between ravens and crows. But the thing that brings them together is that they are both corvids. So this is a family of birds that also includes jays, jackdaws, nutcrackers, magpies. And technically, corvids are a cosmopolitan family of bird. And this is an actual ecological term, by the way. What do you think it means, Marina? It sounds so fancy. I know, right? You know, they're sipping... They're getting drinks on a Friday night. They're going to the cinema. No, I think it's probably that they are in urban spaces, that they can thrive in urban spaces. That's such a good guess. And honestly, I think that's what it should mean. It does not mean that. What it means is that they are worldly. You can find members of the Corvid family in almost all corners of the globe. And ravens, Marina, you can see them hanging out in sub-zero temps next to a Costco in Fairbanks, Alaska, or along a highway in the middle of the frickin' hot Sonoran Desert. There are subspecies of ravens on Mount Everest, in Death Valley, on skyscrapers in London, on Mount Washington in New Hampshire. They're citizens of the world, it sounds like. But I think this is one of the reasons why we take corvids for granted. We see them everywhere. but I gotta tell you, ravens, crows, all those corvids, they are incredibly smart. I want you to watch this video and tell me what's happening. I'm imagining that I'm going to watch something scary. Come on. I'm trying to tell you that ravens aren't so scary. Okay, here I go. All right, so there's three little green cups, and a raven is being presented with them, and then it's just tapped one of them. Yes, exactly. So essentially, what this raven is doing is playing a very simple shell game. Are you familiar with shell games? Yeah, this is like you put something under a cup, mix them all around. You got to guess where the treat is then. So this is called a transposition test, and it's one of more than a dozen challenges in the primate cognition test battery. Oh, so this is like an official thing. Yes, yes, this is an official thing. It was created by scientists in Germany almost two decades ago to judge the intelligence of different species. And let me tell you Marina this battery is pretty intensive Like there is a special memory game where the subject watches food being hidden in multiple places throughout a room And then they must remember where it was stashed There are logic games like using a stick or a string to get a treat that's out of reach. And then also they're judged on which stick they pick. Do they pick like the nice good straight long stick or do they pick the stick that's like broken? Do you think they're getting stressed the day before these tests? I'd get stressed. What happens if they just get, you know, a couple of, no offense, kind of dumb ravens? Or like, I have a bad day. I think I'm a fairly intelligent person. Sometimes I'm not batting 100. Okay, so originally they used these tests to compare human toddlers, chimpanzees, and orangutans. Thus the name primate cognition test. But in 2020, German scientists wanted to see how ravens compared to apes and intelligence. So they tweaked the test slightly to allow for the fact that ravens are smaller. They use their beaks instead of their extremities. But it was pretty much the same battery of tests. And what they found was that even a four-month-old raven, a juvenile, was as smart as an adult chimpanzee. Taking them to town. I feel like the chimpanzees, they have such a hold on us of, like, the smartest animal. Absolutely. This is really shifting that narrative for me. That intelligence, it's not just for us to go like, wow, and throw them through a battery of tests. It gives them an edge in the wild. So ravens have been observed dropping rocks onto predators that get too close to their nests. They've also teamed up with wolf packs, leading them to prey that once killed can be snagged on by ravens. And they also play with the wolf pups. Like they do tug of war with sticks and they start pulling their tails. It's like the Pixar of animal life relationships. I've been waiting to know about. I know, this is real life. Ravens also just like to have fun. Sometimes they'll just ride thermals for no reason. They've been seen sliding down snowbanks, so climbing to the top of a snowbank and then sliding down. And Marina, they make snow angels sometimes after a fresh snow. Whoa, whoa, whoa. How do they do that? They have wings like an angel. They just flap their wings in the snow and make little snow angels just for fun. I'm imagining right now a raven's personal calendar, and it's like 9 a.m., play with some wolves. 2 p.m., make some snow angels. 3 p.m., chase some wolves to where I want them to go. So this intelligence, it also extends to how ravens vocalize. Like, first off, they are amazing mimics, like parrot-level mimics. Miss Jeff, can you say, hello? Hello. Good bird. Can you say, hi? Hi. Good job! Oh my gosh. So I feel like I've only allowed my imagination to give this skill to the parrot. Yes, I know. But corvids do the same thing. There's a video out there of a raven speaking Russian. Hey, it's a mouse. But they also mimic stuff they hear in nature. Like, Rena, where I live in southeast Alaska, ravens have a very specific sound. I'm going to play it for you now, and I want you to tell me what you think it is. That's a... Do you hear that? That's a raven. Look. Yeah. It almost sounds like little drops in the water. Exactly. What are they doing? What are they up to? Juno is in the middle of a temperate rainforest, so there's a lot of water dripping from trees into puddles, and the ravens mimic that sound. I hear it everywhere out here, and it's them mimicking water dropping into puddles. And are they just doing that for fun, or is there a reason for it? I don't know about water per se. I do know that they use mimicry to find each other sometimes, So if a raven loses their mate or they get, you know, like displaced or something like that, one raven will mimic the calls of the other raven to let them know like, hey, I'm over here. I'm over here. I'm making your sound. Oh my gosh. It's like a strategic game of Marco Polo to find your lost loved one. Exactly. And you know, they don't just mimic sounds. They have dozens of vocalizations. They're constantly chatting with each other about where food is, what threats are out there. And when a raven dies, they have corvid funerals. Corvid funerals. So ravens, crows, jays, members of the corvid family, they will gather around their fallen brother or sister, making like a huge racket for 15 or 20 minutes before flying away. And researchers think that they aren't grieving per se, but they're actually acting as murder detectives. It's like an episode of Caw and Order. Oh my god. Did you make this? Yeah, I made that. Mr. Nate, I don't like puns hedgy. Oh my gosh. So what they're doing is examining the dead body, figuring out how it died. They want to make sure that if there's some kind of threat, they know about it and they won't fall victim to the same fate. So if these ravens catch a human hanging around one of their dead brethren, they might figure that human had something to do about it. And then they will remember that person's face for years. Ravens are incredibly good at holding a grudge. So, for example, Sophie Nilles, the avian specialist from the beginning of this episode, part of her job is rescuing injured birds. And one day... I was called to this baseball field. A little nestling crow was on the ground, unable to fly, because we later found out it had a broken wing. I came over to that baby, and the crows immediately were mobbing me. So mobbing is just a behavior where they all get together, they're yelling, they're screaming, they're dive-bombing, and they're saying, hey, don't take our kin. You know, this is part of our family. And so when I would come back here the next time, that family of crows is probably going to recognize me and probably going to dive bomb my head and yell at me and congregate in the trees above me like a scary nightmare. Because think about it, corvids, they are surrounded by threats. I mean, raptors and raccoons target their nests and kill their babies. People will shoot them for fun or for target practice. They can get lead poisoning from eating dead animals shot by hunters. And all of this can create some pretty suspicious birds. Have you ever heard of the term neophobic? No, I have not. It is my new favorite word. It means afraid or wary of new things. Are you neophobic, Nate? Sometimes, you know, when it comes to like AI. Oh, I'm neophobic then. All right. So corvids, they can be very neophobic. that rehabilitated raven that Sophie works with, Onyx. If you bring in something new, he will do like 60 laps around it. For example, I brought in a baby pool in here to Onyx's enclosure, filled it with snow, built a snowman. He didn't touch that thing for seven weeks, not seven weeks, about a week because he was so nervous about it. But he spent that week patrolling, looking at it, understanding it, and eventually he started interacting with it and rolling in the snow in there. Trepidatious is a new word I'm thinking about when I think of ravens. Oh, I like that. Trepidatious. That's a great word. I don't use trepidatious enough. I just feel so bad. I'm calling them spooky. Turns out trepidatious. You know, Sophie didn't bring that kiddie pool in just to make Onyx feel trepidatious. She's always trying to stimulate his brain because, you know, he's a rehabilitated bird hanging out in an enclosure by himself all day. So she's been teaching him tricks using a clicker. Do you know what clickers are? People use them for dog training, right? Yeah it a classic positive reinforcement training Onyx does something you like You click to mark the behavior and then you treat So Just tossed him a peanut He's going to rip that up and eat it. Sophia's taught him how to speak, how to paint with his feet. The coolest thing that Onyx did, though, when I was there, was something completely spontaneous. Oh, my God. He's... Okay. That's so cute. What's he doing? Oh, he is... He just opened his kennel door and walked into his kennel. This is something I am training him to do right now, to voluntarily walk into a kennel for emergency reasons and to be able to just explore the rest of the facility. This is a really big deal that he's doing this in front of Nate because, oh my God, I could cry, because this is a really big sign of trust. My heart has grown three times the size for Onyx. I think it's fascinating for an animal that is as intelligent, as complex as a raven is, they do get this kind of heavy rap. And we are going to get into why they have that heavy rap after the break. But before we do, I want to hear from y'all about your interactions with Corvids. Have you ever had a whiskey jack land on your finger? A crow family attack you? Have you ever heard a raven make an odd sound, send us a voice memo to outsidein at nhpr.org. Do you know what a whiskey jack is, by the way? I have no idea what a whiskey jack is. They're like little jays and in the mountains of the Pacific Northwest. I remember as a kid, you could put your finger out and they would land on your finger if you had a treat. And so they were like the friendliest birds in the world. I don't think I've ever had a bird land on my finger. Gotta go find one. I did not have onyx land on my finger, by the way. I was still a little spooky. My wife knows that my happy time is at night cooking dinner. 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You're juggling multiple roles. Designer, marketer, logistics manager, all while bringing your vision to life. Shopify helps millions of business sell online. Build fast with templates and AI descriptions and photos, inventory and shipping. Sign up for your one euro per month trial and start selling today at shopify.nl. That's shopify.nl. It's time to see what you can accomplish with Shopify by your side. starting a business can be overwhelming you're juggling multiple roles designer marketer logistics manager all while bringing your vision to life shopify helps millions of business sell online build fast with templates and ai descriptions and photos inventory and shipping sign up for your one euro per month trial and start selling today at shopify.nl that's shopify.nl it's time to see what you can accomplish with Shopify by your side. Hey, this is Outside In, a show where curiosity in the natural world collide. I am Nate Hedgie, here with Marina Hanke. Hello. Okay, Marina, what's your favorite snack? Peanut M&M's. Really? Yeah, and I count them as a snack, because that's a nut, that's some chocolate, it's a little combo snack. Wait, do you assume that all snacks have to be combos? I think some people might hear me say peanut M&M's, and they might say, Marina, that's candy. That's not a snack. That's silly. Candies are snacks. All right, Onyx, the rehabilitated raven I met, he also has some favorite snacks. Are you squirmish at all? No, no. Okay. His trainer, Sophie Nillis, took me to the Alaska Raptor Center's kitchen to show me. She pulls out this Tupperware and it was full of stuff that I would not eat late at night watching a movie. Onyx, he's going to get a mixture of a lot of things right now. Today he has some salmon, he has bear meat, has a few dog kibbles in there. This is a rat tail. Loves that. That was unexpected. Sophie is trying to mimic what Onyx would eat in the wild. So obviously they're going to be eating pretty much anything they come across, whether it's the pizza in the trash can or the baby bird out of the nest or, you know, the dead opossum in the street that was hit from the night before. Evolutionary wise, this is a pretty handy trait, right? Yeah, you're never going hungry. But also Well, scavengers are a super important part of the ecosystem for us. I mean, like, Marina, imagine a world without scavengers. Yeah, I guess I've never thought of, like, the detritus of, like, roadkill that sometimes a raven's picking that up. Ravens, crows, whatever. All our scavengers are just cleaning up the highways. And not to mention all the pathogens and diseases that would be out there without something cleaning up our dead. but eating the dead it is a big reason why ravens have a dark cloud hanging over them in western culture if there was a plague if there was a big battle a public execution there were ravens picking on the dead How is your Bible knowledge, by the way? My Bible knowledge? Mom! Do you remember what the big beats of Noah's Ark are at all? There's a massive flood, and all of the animals are put onto Noah's Ark. He's going to take them, and they are going to survive the flood. They are paired, and that's that. So after the big flood, Noah releases two birds to figure out if the waters had receded. A dove and a raven. Dove eventually comes back with an olive branch. But the raven? The raven never comes back. And it's been widely interpreted that's because it was feeding on all the dead people and animals. Aw, see, I mean, that is tough for the reputation of the raven. And this heavy vibe, it is stretched all the way from Genesis to Edgar Allan Poe, who, this is I think my favorite fact of this whole episode, originally was going to use a parrot as the talking bird in this famous story. But he switched over to the raven because of all that creepy, spooky history. Can you imagine if we said, oh, have you read The Parrot by Edgar Allan Poe? It's Halloween. We should pick up The Parrot. And what would the most famous quote be? Quoth, The Parrot. Nevermore. But it's not all bad dark raven stories and myths. The raven does get kind of a good rap in some places. So Great Britain, ravens are considered the protectors of the crown and kingdom. They live in the Tower of London and they are protected by a special raven master. But there one story in particular Marina that I really really love And it comes from the Tlingit people of Southeast Alaska When I see a raven the first thing that comes to my mind is the word yas which means raven in Tlingit So this is Will Geiger, and he is a fluent Tlingit speaker. And I should say the pronunciations in Tlingit are so different than in English that I am going to use the anglicized version of their name. And while Will isn't a member of the Tlingit tribe, he works for one of their non-profits, and he has been tasked with translating all of these oral stories about the character Raven. In the stories, he appears most often in the form of a human being. But he has all these Raven-like characteristics. He's very curious. He's often hopping around like a Raven and flying. And he's ravenous. No matter how much he eats, he's just a bottomless pit, just like ravens you see. They're really hungry. Ravenous, a bottomless pit. When I was editing this with Taylor, we were like, does the word ravenous come from ravens? It doesn't. Shoot. The character Raven, he will do anything to get food. He will kill others. He will trick them. And in one case, he literally changed the entire world just to get back at some people who didn't give him food. That story is called The Origin of Daylight. So, this story starts in a world before daylight. Everything is dark. There is no moon, no stars, nothing. But there are people in this world, and while they can't see, they can hear. Raven, he comes to this river, and he can hear some fishermen hanging out. Remember, he is always ravenous. So he calls out to these fishermen. Oh, it I will send me something to eat. And these people refuse him. And he says, oh, you watch out or I could break daylight on you folks. Break daylight. Those are some fight. I don't even know what it means. And those are some fighting words. Now, at that moment, though, it was an empty threat by Raven. But then these fishermen, they say this insult. They say, who's this so-called child of the head of the Nass to have the daylight. So the Nass is a major river in southeast Alaska. But then Raven gets to thinking, maybe there is actually someone on the Nass who can actually deliver on his threat. So he goes to the head of the river, the head of the Nass. Where there's a kind of wealthy man living with his family, and he possesses these containers within which are the daylight. and the moon and the stars, depending on the storyteller. So Raven comes up with an elaborate plan. First, he shrinks himself and hides in a dipper of water. That water dipper is brought into the house. And then that wealthy man's daughter drinks that water and he slips down inside of her and turns into a baby. Raven is reborn, grows up, becomes a toddler. He starts crying relentlessly and gesturing towards the containers of these luminaries. And he just can't take the crying anymore. So the grandfather's like, sure, take that down and let him play with it. I just, I don't care anymore. It doesn't matter how precious it is to me. Let him have it. And one by one, he gets his hands on them and releases them outside. So first the stars and then the moon. And then he gets his hand on the daylight and he kind of waits till no one's looking at him. And he goes, oh, it calls like a raven and flies up out the smoke hole and disappears. And then in the ultimate payback, Raven goes back to those fishermen, the guys who insulted him. And he has the same sort of threat. Send me some food or I'll crack open the daylight on you guys. and they're like, ah, who are you to, you know, have the daylight? And then this time he really does and cracks it open and boom. And then the whole cosmos is radically transformed. Conniving genius is what I'm feeling. Yo, you wouldn't give me food? Boom. Now you got daylight broke upon you. Boom. Every day of your life has changed. There are other arguably more majestic animals in Tlingit stories, like the eagle or the wolf. But it is the raven that is the most developed, complicated character. Like he's arguably the most human-like. He can solve problems, deceive. He's selfish. He's not above dealing out some payback. I mean, it makes me wonder the instinct we have to be scared or to say they're foreboding. Like, I think sometimes when animals are intelligent, at least in, like, Western culture, I don't know if we always know what to do with that. And so we say you must be causing a problem. You eat gross things. You're up to no good. Because to reckon with the other side is to say, oh, you have intelligence. You are like me. You know, you do perceive me and I perceive you. Ravens remind us of us. Like, that's one of the reasons why Sophie Nilles loves working with the rehabilitated raven Onyx. This might not relate to all people, but for me, being a neurodivergent person, I feel like I can be very comfortable around him because he has all of his weird quirks and I have all my weird quirks and I have a hard time around people. But with Onyx, he makes you feel like, hey, man, I'm kind of strange too. I need a lot of specific things. and it makes you put yourself aside. It makes you wholly dedicate your time to him and what he needs. And it's just amazing. I don't know. You just relate to him. It's just great. That's it for today's episode. I thought about training a Raven to read the credits but I ran out of rat tails to feed them so unfortunately it's just going to be me this episode was written produced and mixed by me Nate Hedgie your host it was edited by Raven master Taylor Quimby our head of house Ravenclaw is Rebecca Lavoie head of on demand audio here at NHPR our Baltimore Ravens offensive line includes left guard Felix Poon right guard Marina Hanke who by the way was right about Ravens talents they are bigger left tackle Jessica Hunt and right tackle Justine Paradis. Music in this episode was by Blue Dot Sessions and Quoth the Raven. Outside In is a production of NHPR. What is healthy spirituality and how does it help us thrive? We explore these questions on the new season of With and For, hosted by me, Dr. Pam King. With and For bridges psychology and spiritual wisdom to help you thrive, featuring conversations with experts like self-compassion pioneer Kristen Neff and author-activist Parker Palmer. So go ahead, follow With and For, hosted by Dr. Pam King, wherever you get your podcasts. Curious about the future of healthcare? Tomorrow's Cure, the chart-topping and Ambie Award finalist podcast from Mayo Clinic, brings it to you today. I'm Kathy Wurzer, and in this new season, I sit down with researchers, doctors, and industry experts who are leading the way in medical innovation. From cutting-edge technology to breakthrough treatments, we'll explore how new solutions are improving and even saving lives. Follow Tomorrow's Cure wherever you listen to podcasts.