CROWS BIGGEST CRITICS

BY DAVID EDWARDS

The University of Washington Bothell is home to over 10,000 crows according to the universities website.  These crows must share the campus with around 5,000 students who attend the University year round which has led to many misconceptions being spread among the students about these mysterious birds that many people know very little about.  A group of 2 other students and myself have been working on creating an art project to showcase these false accusations that students have made about the crows by making a drawing of crows completely made up of quotes that were collected from the student body.

The most common misconception that my group has recorded is that crows are “scary” and “mischievous” creatures.  After doing research on the topic I learned that what many people see mischievous is actually traits that crows have to help them survive.  The first trait that comes to mind when I think about this topics is the memory of a crow.  Scientific research conducted by University of Washington professor John Marzluff has shown that crows have the ability to identify specific humans by their face, and at the same time remember that same face for an extended period of time.  When people first learn about this trait, many feel that it is scary to them that a crow can remember who they are, but when you look further into the topic you can connect that crows use this information to identify who may a potential threat, which to the crows could be the difference between life and death.

My group wants to use this project to help vindicate the crows at the University of Washington Bothell.  Along with the drawing of the crow made up of misconception quotes, there will also be another crow standing next to it which will be made up from actual facts about crows to help show the difference between what people believe is true compared to the actual realities of the crow population.  We hope to change the views of as many of the crow critics who base their opinions on the misconceptions that have been spread around our campus community as can through this project.  Personally I believe it is unfair to the judge the crow population without first understand why they behave in certain ways.  Crows can identify specific humans by facial features, but humans for the most part cannot identify individual crows, so that raises the thought, perhaps crows are more well equipped to critique a human than we are able to critique a crow.

Links:

University of Washington Bothell Crow Website

New York Times Article Covering John Marzluff’s Research

CONTRASTING VIEWS ON CORVIDS

BY ROBERT GLEASON

For my final project I am making a canvas painting on the different perspectives of crows in various cultures. The painting will show how some cultures like the modern western view the corvids in more nefarious and negative way, while other cultures like some Native American hold them in a higher regard and respect them. 

Before I spent time studying crows I viewed crows as many people in a modern western society would view them. With the use of crows and ravens in literature and film reinforcing that association to death it would be hard to view them in any other way in today’s society. Once I learned that some cultures didn’t view them like us and in fact held them in high regard, I had some inspiration for a piece of art.

I have divided my canvas into two sides with one side full of darker colors like red and black while the other side has lighter colors like blue and green. I also have a crow in the middle of the canvas with half of it in the dark side and half in the light side. There is also a crow in the upper left and lower right. This symbolizes how corvids are not only seen in the common negative manner but also the positive views on them.

These pictures show the practice of painting the background and the crows since I have never used paint before. The final piece will be a combination of the two pictures.  I would also want to say how enjoyable painting could be. I am not an artistic person and usually don’t find doing art of any kind pleasant. I was surprised when I learned that when painting was actually a little fun. So if you don’t like doing art at all you might want to give painting a try!

ARE CROWS EVIL?

BY ANTHONY GARCIA

       

Imagine it’s a cold rainy Friday night, after a long day at work; all you want to do is relax. What a perfect night to snuggle up in some blankets, turn on Netflix and enjoy a scary movie. Before you decide what movie to watch, you go make some popcorn to get a feel for the movie theater atmosphere. After 5 minutes of scrolling through hundreds of movies, you decide to watch Jeepers Creepers. This film is a classic horror film that is scary enough to leave chills in your body for days. In the middle of the film, the protagonist and his girlfriend run into an abandoned church. As the scene progresses, you can clearly see and hear crows cawing, the music gets louder as if crows are supposed to be evil then all of a sudden you start seeing more and more crows. It turns out that there are dead bodies residing under the church. Wow who knew crows actually lived nearby abandoned churches with dead bodies.

This isn’t the only film that depicts crows as evil. This is clearly a misconception about crows in modern day Hollywood.  Crows are happy playful creatures. I have witnessed crows playing around in the snow. What’s so evil about that?  Here is my journal entry in which I observed the crows. 

Crows playing in the snow

I have yet to come across a film that depicts crows in a happy atmosphere, except for Dumbo. But even then, Disney decided to depict the crows as racist, can crows ever get a break? In the film industry, crows are considered as the scariest bird. The question is why? I think that maybe it’s because they were somewhat associated with the black plague, many cultures associate them with death. This misconception about crows is in fact a lie.

Crows like any other animal are not evil. They’re just birds, how can something so innocent be affiliated with darkness? It just does not make sense to me. That is why I decided to make a short documentary debunking misconceptions about crows. In our film we are proving many crow misconceptions wrong. The biggest misconception about crows, in my opinion, is that crows are depicted as evil in films and with the public. The reality is that crows are really intelligent and not evil. Crows are so smart that they can solve puzzles in order to get food. BBC, a UK television channel, made a short Youtube clip showing just how quickly and amazingly a crow solves an eight piece puzzle. You can watch that video here: http://youtu.be/AVaITA7eBZE

UW_Bothell crows

Our short documentary is going to consist of crows in their natural habitat, interviews on how the public sees crows, crows in films, myths, and misconceptions about crows. As real footage that we have taken is being shown on the screen, we are going to be talking explaining certain topics like you would see in a long documentary.

We will go more into depth about crows being depicted as evil in our film. Enjoy our movie trailer for our film: http://youtu.be/QUsB3htKsTw. This is only sample of what we have to offer, stay tuned for the actual film in the next few weeks.