Despite the fact that I have a mile long to do list before some of my family arrives sometime tonight or tomorrow for a visit, I have found a slew of talking raven videos. They are five kinds of awesome because, the ravens sound a little creepy.
Ravens are in the corvid family and that group can mimic other birds–think of blue jays imitating Cooper’s hawks and human speech is not out of their reach. Ravens and crows have been kept as pets in the past, although in the United States, it is no longer legal. This video of Julian the talking raven is from a bird at a wildlife rehab center:
But I think my favorite is Terry the Talking Raven from across the pond who not only sounds rather polite with his accent but scores major points for going “Arrrrrr,” just like a pirate!
The first video (you posted on Twitter) sounded so human i thought it was fake. But i watched the second, and then other videos of Julian and yeah it’s pretty impressive. Even African Grays can sound “birdlike” sometimes and i think they’re the best voice mimics in the hookbill world.
i have a friend who has an African Pied Crow (thus legal to keep here) – he houses it in a good sized dog kennel. His crow talks too, but is not as good a mimic of the human voice. Sometimes i wish it wasn’t illegal to keep (native) corvids, but there are enough around my neighborhood to keep me reasonably happy, heh.
Wow, I’m so impressed by how the first raven can perfectly mimic the woman!
My partner and I spent a good hour on youtube looking up videos of talking crows and ravens a few days ago. There is some hilarious stuff on there- the starlings are REALLY bizarre sounding when they mimic humans.
What a coincidence. Not only am I very familiar with the talking ravens, I wrote a kid’s chapter book about a talking raven. I researched the The Common Raven (Corvus corax) in depth for my book…and future book. Thanks for the videos!
Great blog. An article recently was published in Science, a renowned journal, on tool use in New Caledonian crows. Corvids are so smart! Check out the news coverage: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/09/100916145057.htm
I saw a Nova or Nature years back about how smart Crows are, and ever since i’ve been in love with them.
Corvids are great!!!! i met a crow in an aviary once who clearly wanted his head scratched. (he walked up to me, head bent down). Of course I complied, but eventually I had to stop. He immediately called out “More”. so I scratched him some more, and again, when I stopped, he asked for “more”. Freaked out my kid that’s for sure!
Awwww! Love them! Check out the talking starlings, too. Here’s one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GtQCHD1TuHo (Sounds like he’s a little gassy, too!)
I love ravens (who doesn’t?) and knew they were capable of mimicking human speech but I’d never seen video of it before – thanks for posting this! It’s amazing that they can do distinct imitations of multiple people’s voices.
Here’s a pretty neat video of a raven riding the pressure wave in front of a truck: http://www.metacafe.com/watch/2922116/bat_outa_hell/
There’s also a better edited version of the above: http://www.metacafe.com/watch/2922103/wing_surfer/
I LOVE ravens–my favs and everyone say “really?” Thanks Sharon.
I’m loving all these raven video links!
Weewoo the talking starling is one of my favorites on YouTube.