> it was like the bird was telling me that it considered our house its home too
I volunteer at a raptor conservation site where most of the birds are free-flown every few days. It is extremely rare for a bird not to come back 'home' of its own accord. There is one bald eagle (fitted with telemetry) who sometimes flies a couple of miles away and then waits to be collected and driven back in a van. The storks literally walk back along a path from one of the displays to their own aviary.
Being fed by the keepers is obviously a factor in them coming back, but it is also worth bearing in mind that for some birds (e.g. a Peregrin falcon) a hunting flight is an extremely energy-intensive activity, a bit like a cheetah sprinting after a gazelle. Such birds in the wild might spend a lot of time perched in a tree waiting for an easy kill, rather than flying just because they can.
Coming back to crows, one respect in which they seem to cognitively outperform dogs is that they understand traffic and vehicles. Crows eating roadkill will hop out of the way when a vehicle passes, and then hop right back when the road is clear again.
I volunteer at a raptor conservation site where most of the birds are free-flown every few days. It is extremely rare for a bird not to come back 'home' of its own accord. There is one bald eagle (fitted with telemetry) who sometimes flies a couple of miles away and then waits to be collected and driven back in a van. The storks literally walk back along a path from one of the displays to their own aviary.
Being fed by the keepers is obviously a factor in them coming back, but it is also worth bearing in mind that for some birds (e.g. a Peregrin falcon) a hunting flight is an extremely energy-intensive activity, a bit like a cheetah sprinting after a gazelle. Such birds in the wild might spend a lot of time perched in a tree waiting for an easy kill, rather than flying just because they can.
Coming back to crows, one respect in which they seem to cognitively outperform dogs is that they understand traffic and vehicles. Crows eating roadkill will hop out of the way when a vehicle passes, and then hop right back when the road is clear again.