Crow Tobogganing

This is a delightful demonstration by a crow in which he demonstrates clear intelligence, which is a well known trait of crows generally.  I have long argued that the foundation of demonstratable intelligence in the animal kingdom is the emergence of an extended social system.  We have all seen that birds are not over endowed with brain mass, yet some of our cleverest creatures are birds who are part of a clearly organized social network.

More surprising than that observation is this one here.  The crow in question figured out that the plastic ring could serve well as a tool to facilitate the crow tobogganing down the roof on fresh snow.  He then proceeds to do just that as if he were a child enjoying play in the snow.

How a stuffy expert in animal behavior could explain any of this as anything else completely confounds me.  The bird is at this time and place is merely having some fun in a way we can admire.

I suspect that it is appropriate to develop a logic based natural language for a full range of obvious clever animals that allows them to communicate needs and even abstractions.  I suspect failure to date has been to ignore the issue of logic.  Just learning negation would be a breakthrough.