Weekend Birdery/Wordery: “Birdbrain”

May 23, 2010

I don’t think anyone actually uses the pejorative “birdbrain” anymore, but somehow we all know what it means. Maybe from children’s shows or something.

In researching this post, I’ve come to believe that “birdbrain” usage survives now solely as a cheesy trope of news, journal, and (eh hem) blog writing, where it is offered up as an illustration of colloquial folly, a straw man that the author proceeds to dispatch by adducing the latest research in avian intelligence. We at weekend wordery disdain such stale hackery.

On the other hand, we at weekend birdery are not above the occasional prose gimick when necessary. So, whether or not the existence of the term “birdbrain” implicates a widespread belief that birds are stupid, it would be a pernicious myth if it did. And any myth as pernicious as this one should be dispelled at every opportunity, even one fabricated entirely for the purpose of setting it right.

Therefore I am announcing a series of posts, beginning with this one, to illustrate just how smart birds can be. First, a caveat: For the most part, all animals—present conspecifics included—are dumb. But with that proviso, birds are not, relatively speaking, a particularly dumb class of animals. (Note: if you can conjure David Attenborough’s voice in your mind’s ear, cue it up now:) And indeed, as we’ll see over the course of this series, birds are, quite often, remarkably clever. And the cleverest of all the birds…are the corvids.

Corvids, a family that includes crows and jays (as well as rooks, ravens, and magpies), have displayed a measure of cunning that surpasses not only other birds, but also most mammals—even, in some respects, the non-human great apes. Here’s a sampling of what research and observation have taught us about corvid intelligence:

An individual European Magpie can recognize itself in a mirror (a rare capacity for non-mammals).
Carrion Crows in Japan have been observed dropping hard nuts in crosswalks, waiting for cars to drive over them and crack their shells. (See for yourself.)
Ravens have exhibited the ability to tactically deceive one another in order to hoarde food or to raid each others’ stashes.
Western Scrub Jays have demonstrated episodic memory (that is, memory of specific past events ) and the ability to plan for future contingencies based on past experience and observation. (Via Ed Yong.)
Rooks have evinced an elementary understanding of Archimedes’ Principle, dropping rocks into a tall cylinder to raise the water level therein, so that they could reach a worm floating on the surface. (Watch it. Via Ed Yong, again.)
Many corvids are known to use tools—for example, a stick to get a grub out of a small hole. But the New Caledonian Crow can make and modify tools (like hooks) and can even use tools to make or acquire other tools.