Birdbrain? Balderdash!

If you call somebody a birdbrain, you're usually commenting that someone is silly or not too bright, when, in fact, birds are pretty darn smart.  Birds use tools and can problem solve.  They also do observational learning.  Birds use teamwork to steal food from another animal or bird.  One bird will distract the victim while the second bird swoops down to steal the food.  Birds also use teamwork to drive away predators - maybe a little bit like tag team wrestling. Some birds actually 'go fishing' by dropping an insect in the water, wait for the fish to 'take the bait', and then scoop up the fish.  It is believed some birds use the formic acid from ants as a natural flea and lice repellent.

In the 1960s scientists discovered that birds have a part of the brain that other mammals do not have.  The larger this part of the brain, the smarter the bird, so they say.  Crows and ravens are the ones with the largest section of this part of the brain.

Ravens are also called wolf-birds.  Scientists have substantiated a symbiotic relationship between wolves and ravens.  The ravens rely on wolves to make a kill and open a carcass.  Ravens beaks are not strong enough to open a carcass even if they find one.  The wolves also take cues from ravens as to possible sources of food and alerts to potential danger.  Wolves allow ravens to feed with them with seemingly no objections.  For an in depth look at raven intelligence, check out 'Mind of the Raven' by Bernd Heinrich.  Here is a review of the book.

 Source:  Curious Expeditions

Studies done by Helmut Prior show that magpies can recognize themselves in a mirror.  It was originally thought only primates and dolphins are capable of self-recognition.  Prior used the 'dot' experiment, placing a dot on the bird that could only be seen if it looked in the mirror; the bird recognizes the dot is on him/her and then tries to remove it.

Source:  Newscientist.com

At Auckland University In another experiment with New Caledonian crows, the crows first had to pull up a string with a short stick attached, figure out how to 'unattach' the short stick, then take the short stick to a toolbox where it could extract a longer stick which they then could use to get meat out of a hole.  The point being that the crows had to understand that the shorter stick wasn't long enough to reach the meat, only the longer stick would work.

Source:  Stuff.co.nz

Then, of course, there are the birds that get my vote for smartest in the bunch - those that lay their eggs in other birds' nest so the 'victim' bird takes care of their young.  This practice is known as brood parasitism.  These 'parasite' birds include the Common Cuckoo, the brown-headed cowbird and several species of ducks.  Unfortunately, this does take a toll on the surrogate parent since in many cases the dumped young are bigger than they are.

A reed warbler feeding a cuckoo  Photo by Per H. Olsen Source: Wikipedia

In another experiment crows were given a problem to solve - they were given a straight piece of wire and a tube with a 'pail' of food in it.  For a video that shows how they solved the problem, click here.

We all know many birds can mimic human speech and even other bird calls.  My cousin Jon had a parrot named Jellybean who could sound just like a telephone ringing, often fooling Jon as he would run to answer it.  Jellybean could also sound just like my cousin coughing!  A well known example of bird intelligence is another parrot named Alex, who, unfortunately, died in 2007.  He was the 'child' of scientist Irene Pepperberg.  Alex didn't just 'parrot' Irene, but could answer questions about any number of things.  For a video of Alex, click here.  Dr. Pepperberg is still working with parrots Griffin and Arthur.  To learn more about her work, click here.

 

Alex   Source:  Wellsphere

 
So if anybody calls you a birdbrain, whip out your best Elvis impression and say, 'Thank you, thank you very much.'  For more information, you can check out 'Mind of the Raven' on my Book Recommendation page.