Low Info

Last post, I wrote about fish crows, a bird of very few words. A pair of them will be flying along and one says, “krokk;” and after a bit, the other says “krokk” and maybe adds another “krokk” or not; and that’s it, end of conversation. Fish crows are, like all crows, famously social. And society requires communication: no communication, no community. So crows should have a lot to say to each other and the other crows I have around here, American crows, definitely do. But fish crows: “you good?” “yup.” As I said in that last post, crow researchers know a good bit about what crows are saying and it’s what you’d expect: they warn each other about threats, they update about threats moving closer, they argue over territory, they tell each other about food, they arrange meetings. The little ones ask for food, the big ones tell them to stop asking. But those are American crows and everybody, honest, every American knows how incessant, how noisy they are. So I have a burning question: how…