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One special memory of my raft trips down the Colorado River through Grand Canyon is the behavior of the ravens living along the river. When we camped each night, their goal was to steal food, and they often worked in pairs to do it. Several times, I saw a raven dance and squawk to draw attention while another bird snatched unguarded food.

Ravens are members of the corvidae family, as are crows, rooks, jays, and magpies. Most experts consider corvids, especially crows and ravens, to be the most intelligent of all birds.

Scientists say that, despite having a brain the size of a pecan, they possess the reasoning ability of a seven-year-old human. True, one’s reasoning ability at age seven is a work in progress, but that’s still impressive.

In several experiments, crows quickly learned to drop stones into containers of water to raise the water level, either to get a drink or to bring food into reach.

They also regularly use twigs or sticks as tools, and they will drop nuts onto a highway so passing vehicles will crack the shells.

A family of crows usually consists of about a dozen birds. They are highly social and use a variety of caws and clicks to communicate. They use separate calls to tell their fellows that a threat is from a person, cat, hawk, or whatever.

Crows not only can recognize individual human faces, but also have the capacity to inform later generations about known threats.

In 2011, a team at the University of Washington trapped a dozen crows while wearing “caveman” masks. The crows were tagged and released and thereafter left alone.

For the next five years, researchers walked a designated route near the trapping site, some wearing the caveman masks and some not.

Initially, the team noted that the crows showed alarm and scolded people wearing the caveman mask 26 percent of the time. After 15 months, the figure was up to 30 percent. After three years, it rose to 66 percent. The researchers concluded that the crows were informing their peers and offspring that caveman humans are dangerous.

Conversely, crows will be nice to you if you’re nice to them. Instances have been recorded of crows bringing gifts — pebbles, sticks, etc. — to people who feed them.

Some 40 species of crow exist around the world. The one you’re familiar with probably is the American crow, although the fish crow and Tamaulipas crow also live in North America.

Thanks to their brain power and adaptability, crows are doing quite well as a species. Experts say their numbers over the last 40 years grew about 20 percent per decade. Their estimated breeding population now stands at some 27 million.

Impressive and interesting animals. And certainly not birdbrains.