With what has been discovered in recent years about both social behavior and intelligence in a wide range of animal species anyone that continues to insist that humans are special or any better is simply deluded and ignorant. Crows in particular are remarkably intelligent. Their ability to both adapt to changing environments and use tools is startling. One segment shows a crow figuring out a sequence of actions to get one tool (a short stick) hanging from a string that it then uses to retrieve a longer stick from a cage. The second stick is used to get a piece of meat from a box. In Japan, jungle crows swipe wire hangers used to hang out laundry and then use their wings to reshape them to build nests. Amazing to watch. update: I added a link to the PBS page with the show.
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A Murder of Crows ~ Full Episode | Nature | PBS
Although cultures around the world may regard the crow as a scavenger, bad omen, or simply a nuisance, this bad reputation might overshadow what could be
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I'd be interested to see if common crows can learn without directly observing – it's a common example in strategies of animal learning that the British Blue Tit (the bird, not Hugh Laurie) could learn how to peck through the lids of milk containers to get at the cream on top, but only through observing another Blue Tit doing it first.
Watching footage of Alex, the famous African Grey who Pepperberg taught language, really makes me question what the nature of humanity is.