Bird brains

[Pat]

Wonder what folks thought are on the comparitive intelligence of birds. I moved our bird feeders today. One is on a 6 ft pole and has two sunflower feeders on it. It is frequented by various blackbirds (red wing, grackle, boat tailed grackle, starlings, cow birds, yellow headed blackbirds, cardinals, wrens, finches, etc) The other has two thistle seed feeders and a 4 holer hummingbird feeder. The humming birds followed me as I moved the feeder and were drinking with me only 3 ft away as soon as I set it up. The goldfinches immediately used all the seed feeders. The blackbirds would come in for a landing, gliding, extend their "landing gear" and then realize there were no feeders and perches there now and flap away (make a missed approach.) This happened over and over. I expect eventually the black birds will "get it" but they sure are a lot slower to catch on than the hummers and finches. Hours later a few blackbirds visited the sunflower feeder in its new location (less than 20 ft from old location.)

Crows are pretty smart and actually can tell the difference between a shovel or fishing pole and a shotgun.

Pat

[RichZ]

The intelligence of birds varies from species to species just as the intelligence of various species of mammals varies. At the top end of intelligence scale is the family of crows, ravens and jays, who's intelligence is equal or greater to that of monkeys. This group of birds even have a complex form of language and an extremely complex social structure. Young are raise by extended families, and extended families help take care of injured or extremely aged members of the group, by feeding them and protecting them.

[pbenven]

I saw a documentary about ravens (I think it was set in England). They eat these nuts from trees that line a street. They're not strong enough to crack them, so they drop them on the street and wait for cars to run them over. Pretty smart, eh? It gets better...

I guess they figured that this approach was too dangerous, so they decided to start dropping them at intersections and then...

wait for the light to change red before swooping down to collect their spoils!