The next time someone calls you a birdbrain, just smile and thank them. In the past few decades, scientists have discovered that the brain of many bird species is comprised of a processing system that works much the same way as our cerebral cortex. Many studies have shown that birds, especially the parrots and members of the crow family, are at least as smart as the dolphins and the apes.
It is reasoned that the more social an animal is, the more intelligent it must be in order to live in the complex structure of the group, communicate with other members, and recognize family members and individuals, even after small changes in appearance due to aging and molt. Primates, whales, dolphins, bats, and birds—especially parrots and members of the crow family—are highly social animals, and are all thought to be highly intelligent.
Alex, the famous African Grey Parrot had a vocabulary of over 150 words but could do much more than mimic. He would put words together to create new meanings and he understood concepts such as bigger, smaller, same, and different. His owner said that Alex could count, or could at least estimate quantity, sometimes as quick as his human handlers could. It is said he even understood the concept of none or zero.
Members of the crow family—the ravens, crows, jays, and magpies—show an amazing aptitude for problem solving. Crows have been shown to use sticks to extract insects from logs and holes. One crow in the lab that was given a piece of wire to extract food from a tube, actually bent the wire in its bill to more easily grab the food. Crows in Japan have learned that car tires are an excellent walnut cracker. They wait for the red light at an intersection, walk out and place the walnut in front of a tire, and then wait for the next red light to retrieve the meat from the broken nut.
The jays and the Clark's Nutcracker will collect and bury thousands of nuts and retrieve them months later with a 90% memory accuracy, sometimes even under several feet of snow. Jays will even dig up and rebury a nut if another jay was watching, hinting at a realization of a future action by the marauding jay.
Ravens show a great deal of intelligence both in the wild and in the lab. One university researcher hung a piece of meat on a string in a Raven's cage. The bird hopped up on the perch and pulled the string up with its beak, grabbed the loop with its foot, and pulled up another loop until the meat was in reach. Some animals can be taught that, the researcher said, but the Ravens figured it out "straight away."
Ravens will often follow wolf packs waiting for a kill, and will also vocalize to direct a pack to a carcass so that the wolves will break the carcass apart for better access to the meat for the birds. In Bernd Heinrich's "Mind of the Raven" (highly recommended) he recounts of a Raven coming across two donuts. The bird reached through the hole of one donut, grabbed the second one, and flew away with both.
The list goes on and on . . . Honeyguides in Africa flying backwards to direct humans to bee hives so they can reap the spoils, herons using bait to attract fish, and maybe the most amazing—the self-realization of Magpies that had colored discs attached to them and picked them off their own body when shown a mirror. It seems the only thing birds are lacking for cultural advances are opposable thumbs.
