I went for a long drive on the weekend, and there was something that troubled me.

I'm Australian, in Australia, specifically southern Australia. Very specifically, southern Victoria. Anyway. I took a long drive on Friday, out to Halls Gap, which is a beautiful part of the world. Oddly, I noticed along the way a significant amount of dead crows on the side of the road. Now I'm of county stock, and I know well that crows (although technically ravens I believe) are an extraordinarily intelligent bird, and it's very rare that you see one fallen by the roadside. As such, it was obvious to me as unusual. So I looked it up, and as it happened there'd been a study conducted regarding the very road I'd driven down. Turns out, this particular road was notorious for dead crows on account of two very basic reasons, the first, it's proximity to bushland which ensured a considerable amount of regular road kill (possums, kangaroos, etcetera) and second, the road was a significant trucking route. It follows logic, although I did not see it at the time, that it was determined that the trucks, rather than the cars which used the road were to blame regarding the amount of dead crows. How so, you ask? I, too, was interested to know. You see, the front of the average car in these modern times is made of plastic and paint whereas the Australian cross-country truck is equipped with a large alloy bullbar. A crow, when hit by a car will have chips of paint transferred onto its feathers whereas one downed by a truck will have none. Now crows are not usually struck by vehicles, as they are a very intelligent bird. As such, they employ a sentry bird, which looks out as the others eat from the road, and warns them of any approaching danger. Such is the intelligence of the crows! So why should they perish by truck in such numbers? The answer amazed me. As it turns out, a sentry crow sees the approaching vehicle and calls to his friends CAR! CAR! CAR! but he can't say truck

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👤︎ u/aofhise6
📅︎ Jul 25 2021
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