Original Article: https://blog.theanimalrescuesite.greatergood.com/talking-crow/

When you think of talking birds, parrots probably come to mind. But parrots apparently aren’t the only birds with linguistic abilities. Students in Grants Pass, Oregon, learned this first-hand when a fast-talking crow dropped by their fifth-grade classroom to chat.

“This crow showed up at our school just out of the blue one morning,” one of the school’s education assistants, Naomi Imel, told The Oregonian/Oregon Live. Imel recalled how the crow began poking his head into rooms and pecking on doors before hopping into one classroom, where he helped himself to some snacks.

But this bizarre situation was about to take an even stranger turn. Not only did the friendly bird enjoy being around students (so much so that s/he playfully landed on some kids’ heads), the crow could even talk.

“The bird could say, “What’s up?” and “I’m fine” and “a lot of swear words,” the stunned assistant recalled. “It was like a parrot. It was the weirdest thing.”

According to The Oregonian, the crow was actually a 2-year-old pet bird named Cosmo, who had been rescued from a shelter when he was just a baby. Now Cosmo lives on a local farm, where he lovingly addresses his rescuer, JaNeal Shattuck, as “Mom.”

“He will go right to my bedroom window and say, ‘Mom wake up, wake up!’” says Shattuck.

But over Thanksgiving weekend, Cosmo disappeared, leaving Shattuck “devasted.” Apparently, not all of the neighbors appreciate the talking crow, who also knows how to swear and tease people. This led Cosmo’s owner to fear the bird may have been killed.

As it turns out, a neighbor had taken Cosmo to an animal sanctuary, from where rescuers (not knowing that Cosmo could talk and lived on a family farm) had released him back into the wild.

The talking crow spent the next four days trying to get home to his owner. This included dropping by the local Planet Fitness, where Cosmo chatted with gymgoers, before going to look for Shattuck at the local elementary school. Luckily, Cosmo hopped into the classroom of a student whose parents knew his owner, presumably the only person in town with a talking crow.

“He went to the only kid I know in Allen Dale and knocked on the door,” the bird’s grateful owner told The Oregonian. “When he was in the school he was jumping around saying, ‘It’s OK! I’m fine!”

After learning of Cosmo’s location, Shattuck’s daughter, Daphnie Colpron, rushed to the school–where the crow had spent the past 24 hours evading capture from Oregon state police–with a can of sardines.

Now Cosmo is back home with his family, where he uses his excellent memory to build on his already impressive vocabulary, which also includes commands to boss around the family dogs.

“He knows a lot of words, I’m not going to lie,” Colpron told the paper, estimating Cosmo knows at least 40 words. “His vocabulary has expanded quite a bit in the last few weeks.”

Source: The Animal Rescue Site Blog