Welcome to r/crowbro, the Subreddit for People Who Have Befriended Their Local Crows

If you’ve been dredging through Facebook, Instagram or the smoking rubble of Elon Musk’s CSAM-generating Twitter lately, you may have come across a cute story about a woman and her doting bird. The woman in question is Dr. Julia Turner, an ecologist and evolutionary biologist in the UK at Oxford, with a specialization in pollinating insects. It wasn’t her fondness for bees or beetles that snared the eye of the public, however–it was Turner’s recent adoption of a fledgling Eurasian magpie that fell out of its nest and couldn’t be returned, who quickly became her constant companion. It’s an undeniably adorable bond that has been created between the pair, first out of necessity and survival, and now as a reflection of unmistakable affection. Ajax, as the now rapidly maturing magpie is known, loves to hang out with Dr. Turner, even as he is steadily growing into his abilities as a wild animal. This is thankfully not a story of a wild bird being tamed–Ajax will most likely strike out on his own before long, to secure his own territory as an adult. All things must pass.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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A post shared by The Archbishop of Banterbury🇬🇧 (@thearchbishopofbanterbury)

Seeing the story of Ajax blow up across various social media platforms, however, I couldn’t help but be reminded of one of the more amusingly eccentric subreddits I stumbled across a while back: r/crowbro, which is populated by pretty much the same species of human being, those who have found themselves in oddly friendly or familial relationships with members of the deeply intelligent birding family Corvidae. That includes the likes of ravens, rooks, jays, magpies, and yes, of course–crows. R/crowbro is a place for those people to generally talk about the corvids they’ve befriended, share videos of corvids absolutely going to town on peanuts, show off the array of shiny trinkets and decaying animals that their crows have brought them as “gifts,” and plot crow-related world domination. Somehow, it has more than 250,000 subscribers. That is a lot of crow bros and crow bro aspirants.

The stories shared in this place are just as absurd as you would expect them to be. You’ll see someone talking about how they were out and about in public when “their” crow bro recognized them on a rooftop bar and stopped by specifically to say hello. You’ll find a person who talks about moving into a new home and having to leave their flock of crow acolytes behind, only for the crows to then find them again at their new apartment and relocate there instead. There’s even a guy who claims their crow bro literally gifted them a fully functional Apple Airpod out of the sky. Do we believe it? I don’t know, but “I got a weird gift from my crow” is a whole subgenre of post on this subreddit, from instances of people receiving metal tins, to bracelets, to one person very amusingly receiving a discarded plastic tube of THC gummies. So why not expensive electronics from a crow as well?

A crow gifted me an airpod and case, direct from the sky
byu/saltypeteDC incrowbro

R/crowbro is just one of those fleeting online spaces where you can typically enjoy a quick smile or wholesome emotional pick-me-up, and is thankfully not weighed down by an undercurrent of people who are doing more harm to the birds than good. Stickied guides walk new visitors through topics such as what is and is not safe for crows and other corvids to eat, and there are plenty of warnings and admonishments not to screw around with nature by say, removing a crow from its nest so you can try to adopt it as a pet. Pet crows aren’t allowed on r/crowbro at all, in fact–only the wild corvids that decide of their own ineffable accord that they want to be our friends.

As a backyard birder myself with occasional crow visitors who are all too happy to gobble up the seeds and nuts in our feeder and splash around in our birdbath, I may even have a secret crow bro of my own without realizing it. There are a few occasions when I’ve found an unusual object on the patio table–a shiny rock, a wrapper, a stick I know I didn’t place there–and not been able to place its origin. Is it a dirty, contemptible squirrel or raccoon leaving this junk around? Or are they cherished gifts from a noble bird that wants nothing more than to be my new best friend? If I leave a “Do you like me? YES: ____ NO: ____” note, and a pen, will the crows reply? Do I dare, just in case they definitively mark “NO” and leave no room for doubt?

I don’t know that I’m strong enough to face down crow rejection, so perhaps this is a mystery best left unsolved. But if I ever find a pair of inexplicable Airpods on the patio, I’ll at least know which subreddit will want to hear about the discovery. In the meantime, please enjoy this guy from our own backyard feeder camera, playing the old “how many peanuts can I swallow at once?” game.

The answer appears to be “at least four peanuts.”