JA: My favorite encounter was with New Caledonian Crows.
Birds are great models for understanding our own mental processes-how we learn language, for instance, or how speech evolved in the first place.Ī: You encountered many fascinating birds in person. Their brain waves show the same pattern as ours during sleep. They locate themselves in space and position themselves in social groupings, from family units to flocks of hundreds or thousands. JA: We can learn something about how our own brains work.
Within hours the little birds were beelining it, solo, back to their wintering grounds in southern California and Mexico-even the young ones, who had only made the migratory journey once. They knew just where to go and just how to get there-without the help of technology. I don't know many humans who would pass that test.Ī: What can we learn from the study of bird intelligence? In one study, scientists plucked a small flock of these sparrows from their migratory path on the West Coast and transported them by jet 3,000 miles across the country to New Jersey. JA: Birds are far more gifted than we are at navigating. How do I obtain hard-to-get foods? How do I get along with others? How do I defend my territory?Ī: What can bird brains do that human brains can't? Both bird brains and human brains to meet some of the same challenges in nature and solve some of the same problems, both ecological and social. But it turns out that birds have evolved a different but quite remarkable system for generating sophisticated, flexible thinking, right alongside ours. You had to have a cortex, with layers of neurons like we have. Jennifer Ackerman: For centuries, we thought there was only one way to wire a clever brain that's capable of our kind of complex thinking. Ackerman seeks out the brainiest species and reveals their unique mental abilities through fascinating anecdotes-from mockingbirds that learn hundreds of "languages," to pied babblers that "kidnap" chicks from other families. Audubon discussed these stories with Ackerman via email, along with the many mysteries that still surround birds and their intelligence.Īudubon: Birds and mammals have been on separate evolutionary paths for over 300 million years, yet they still share some skill sets, such as the ability to use tools. (Brain cells are extraordinarily greedy, and require up to 10 times their percentage in weight in oxygen and blood flow.)īut w hat's a bird need all those cells and neurons for? The list is near endless, according to veteran science writer Jennifer Ackerman, who explores the different forms of avian intelligence in her new book, The Genius of Birds. Many birds have craniums that are big for their body size-an important and costly evolutionary trait. And yet they still pack a proportional punch. The stereotype is true: Bird brains are much smaller than their human counterparts.