Holy crow!

I love displays of intelligence in other animals - I love anything that makes us reconsider our perceived exceptionalism. A while back I was on dolphins, now it's onto the family Corvidae. The corvids include jays, ravens, rooks, magpies, and crows, along with a few others. The species that has been getting the most attention over the past decade have been crows.

More after the caw cut
One of the first experiments that demonstrated the intelligence of crows was performed at Oxford. In this experiment meat was placed in a vertical tube too long for the crows to simply reach down and pick up the meat. But there was a handle placed on the meat, and the birds were given two wires: one straight and one bent to form a hook. In one experiment the crow chose the hook, but this was not replaced for the next crow to use. This next crow, 'Betty', only had the straight wire (researchers did not plan this). So what did she do? She bent the wire to create a hook. The implications of this are pretty mind-blowing.

Crows are problem solvers. They are not content to try something once and then leave it be - if they know there is a reward to be had, they will approach the problem from every angle within their capability

I'll leave it with this TedTalks video which shows another experiment: