When I was a child, I'd spend a lot of time at my grandfathers farm, and one summer he took in an injured crow that hurt its wing.
For some strange reason, he named all of his animals Jack, cats, dogs and now crows. So we'd go out in the morning and my grandfather would call out "Jack" and the Dog would come running down the yard, and then next thing you'd see the crow hopping down the yard after the dog. It would arrive and wait for him to pick it up with his hand and it would sit on his shoulder while he fed it nuts and seeds. Jack the dog and Jack the crow would also hang out together and play. It also would be very wary of other visitors and knew to leave the house if it was going to go to the toilet.
This went on for maybe a full year until it decided to just fly off, but throughout that time it really opened my eyes to how smart animals could actually be, and is a really fond memory of mine.
Inverse story: my dad sprayed water at a crow on his lawn, the crow then took to perching on the clogged gutter above the front door and kicking water at anyone who walked under.
As much as I love my dad for all the good exemple he taught me, there is no doubt in my mind that if I were to lose him, the buffoneries as you call them would be what I miss the most.
> So we'd go out in the morning and my grandfather would call out "Jack" and the Dog would come running down the yard, and then next thing you'd see the crow hopping down the yard after the dog.
Tangent: this is a handy effect, if you could get it to work, but it’s a bit surprising if it did work: animals have different audible frequency ranges, and, obviously, they’ll only respond to a name they can hear. Dogs and crows might have similar audible ranges (this is suggestive anecdata to that effect!), but I know that the range for cats is slightly higher, such that a name like “jack” wouldn’t even register to them. (You need a name with a close/front vowel sound in it, since humans produce those with a high pitch. Thus why the word “kitty” is thought to exist—it evolved as an optimal call-name! Or you can just “pspsps”, since that also comes out high-enough that cats hear it quite clearly.)
From what you said, there was also a cat named “jack”—did it come when called? If so, did calling it require a second, higher-keyed calling of the name?
Also, cats aren't as social as either dogs or crows (collaborative hunting wise). Cats not coming when summoned is a very common thing, even when they recognise their names.
Cats will come over to you if you squat down, it happens almost instantly. In cat world I guess the human being low means you're nice.
Cats are heavily into patterns. My family always had cats and you could see how they craved for everything to be in order. You come home at 5pm, you eat at 6, you watch TV at 7pm, you turn off the TV at 10:35pm, you brush your teeth at 10:40pm and on and on. Cats know and expect your routine to be the same and they seem to love that.
My elderly parents' cat puts my father to bed. Then she goes off to her favourite sleeping spot. My dad's brother comes to visit at 2pm and the cat gets ready for the visit by coming to sit by the chair before my uncle arrives.
Crows also have vocal chords capable of producing human language, and - similar to parrots - they can learn human phrases in the right conditions.
My partner used to volunteer at the local Wildcare and they had an injured crow resident that they couldn't release named Da Vinci. Da Vinci would always greet visitors with "Hello! How are you? How are you?"
I was staying in a hostel in the Philippines and they had a pet crow that would greet you, but he'd also fuck with you - or at least me. He'd say "Come here" over and over until I went over to him, then he'd turn away from me when I got there. As soon as I turned back away he'd say "come here" again. Funny little shit.
My wife and I used to return to the same place in the woods and would try to attract and feed crows. Once we were packed up and preparing to leave with crows watching us as my wife distributed more peanuts while she was trying to caw like them but I then found that the crows were changing some of their caws seemingly to mimic my wife's imitation and then purely by accident I coughed and a nearby crow clearly mimicked my cough!
I love crows, they have lots of character if you take time to observe them.
I had a similar experience. When I was a kid I used to buy grocery from a local store. There was a crow greeting every single customer with "Hello! Dinner yet? Dinner yet?".
I think that's a good way to connect with local customers :)
When I was 12 or so we had a neighbor who had a pet raven or crow, not sure which. But this bird did the owners cigarette cough and gravel gert voice perfectly for 10 or so words.
Someone later gave the guy a mynah bird that had a 30 or so word vocabulary. The birds eventually taught each other the words and the cough.
It was pretty funny to walk past that house on a nice day and hear 3 cigarette coughs and hearing the mynah say happy halloween in a sort-of witch voice no matter the time of the year.
There is an American Crow in an enclosure at a local wildlife rescue. He can't be released because of his injuries, so he's one of the center's permanent residents. He won't speak on command, but he will immitate sounds he hears (he does a ringtone sort of sound) and he will say "American Crow" every so often.
There are lots of youtube videos of talking (and swearing) crows.
It's more likely to happen with parrots (since they can legally be kept as pets and interact with humans more closely), but crows have the brainpower for it.
Crows and Ravens can also sound very human. There are some videos on youtube that are pretty unnerving. Makes for good background to Poe's famous story.
You'd probably need to start with a lone crow. As a group they can be quite nefarious and clever about it. I once slowed down a group of crows from killing and eating an injured bird; once they boldly got past my interference, they formed a sub-group and that sub-group followed me all the way home (1/2 mile) hopping from tree to tree, cawing the whole way.
Over the summer my partner taught our local gang of crows that if they come to our house in the morning and the afternoon and make some noise, she'd come out and throw them peanuts and meal worms. We're not on petting them terms, but we've got an understanding. :D
There was a documentary in Japan a few years ago that showed local crows going absolutely crazy for mayonnaise. (Ketchup, on the other hand, they had zero interest in.)
For some strange reason, he named all of his animals Jack, cats, dogs and now crows. So we'd go out in the morning and my grandfather would call out "Jack" and the Dog would come running down the yard, and then next thing you'd see the crow hopping down the yard after the dog. It would arrive and wait for him to pick it up with his hand and it would sit on his shoulder while he fed it nuts and seeds. Jack the dog and Jack the crow would also hang out together and play. It also would be very wary of other visitors and knew to leave the house if it was going to go to the toilet.
This went on for maybe a full year until it decided to just fly off, but throughout that time it really opened my eyes to how smart animals could actually be, and is a really fond memory of mine.