WolfQuest

I'm sure you've all heard of these guys. This is a family consisting of crows, ravens, jackdaws, jays, magpies, rooks, choughs, nutcrackers, piapiacs, and treepies.

I love these guys, and especially their vivid colors, which mostly consists of jet black, pure white, slate grey, and bright blue. I also love their ability to talk like parrots.

They're also some of the smartest birds, smarter than parrots.

Though they may be pests in some areas, I still love them. Do you?

More information on the Corvidae family: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corvidae

It's pretty much been proven that they are smarter than parrots. Brain-wise, their brain covers most of their skull, and if their head were the size of ours, their brain size would be pretty close to ours and the same size as the apes and dolphins. It's larger scale-wise than a parrot's.
Also, since the young take more time to grow than a parrot, they also learn more and thus gain more intelligence.
And one of the most important things that proved that corvids were smarter than parrots was the mirror test. The European Magpie, which is a part of the Corvidae, is the only bird to recognize itself in a mirror, and very few other animals did so, all being mammals.

They are also known to talk and do more tricks than parrots, because of their easy learning capabilities and a more agile body structure.

What is the root meaning of Corvidae?

What do you mean? The basic meaning of the Corvidae is a family of birds such as crows and ravens. See the first post for all that information.

Redsky wrote:What do you mean? The basic meaning of the Corvidae is a family of birds such as crows and ravens. See the first post for all that information.

I mean the latin or whatever meaning. All words like those have one.

I have a family of three crows living next to our house; they like to wake me up in the morning but I don't mind because they are so beautiful to look at. =D

We actually had to help out one of the crows when it was a chick - it was still learning to fly and managed to get stuck in our garden and couldn't get back out again. Initially we thought it was hurt (at first impression it didn't look like a chick at all - he was pretty big!) but a woman from a rescue centre came and checked him over then reunited him with his parents. :> They all live as a trio now in the woods close to me so they are fun to watch.

A lot of people hate magpies in my area; sometimes I can understand why, because they tend to bully/chase the smaller birds. I still think they are rather pretty though.

JayMist wrote:

Redsky wrote:What do you mean? The basic meaning of the Corvidae is a family of birds such as crows and ravens. See the first post for all that information.

I mean the latin or whatever meaning. All words like those have one.

It means a bird family which consists of crows, ravens, and all that stuff. What else would it mean? That's the whole meaning of the word.

And cool story, Atropine! I've always been fascinated with the corids. I'd love a pet crow, raven or magpie someday. And yes, I also think magpies are pretty, especially with their glinting black feathers.

Atropine wrote:We actually had to help out one of the crows when it was a chick - it was still learning to fly and managed to get stuck in our garden and couldn't get back out again. Initially we thought it was hurt (at first impression it didn't look like a chick at all - he was pretty big!) but a woman from a rescue centre came and checked him over then reunited him with his parents. :> They all live as a trio now in the woods close to me so they are fun to watch.

Interesting story, Atropine! It's nice to know that the little - or should I say big? - chick is alright.^^

I love the cheekiness and intelligence of corvids, not to mention their beautiful aesthetics. We have a lot of jackdaws all over the place in the Netherlands, and I think they're my favourite corvid. Always fun to see them gang around, or around this time of the year, hang out with their scruffier, skinnier young.

I'm personally not a huge fan of magpies since they tend to strike me as a bit "meaner" - I've often witnessed them caught in harassing behaviour and whatnot I don't see in crows and the jackdaws here. They're beautiful to look at and witnessing their intelligence in action can definitely be cool, though.