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BIRD
BRAIN: AN
EXPLORATION
OF AVIAN
INTELLIGENCE
BY DR NATHAN
EMERY
(US$27, IVY PRESS)

Which are the smartest birds?

Bird intelligence is only about 20 to

25 years old as a serious field of

study, so with a lot of birds we just

don’t know how smart they are yet.

But in terms of more human-like,

complex cognition, the focus so far

has been on parrots and corvids –

crows, ravens, rooks, jays, etc.

What makes these birds

particularly smart?

There are three main areas where

they excel. First, there’s mental

time travel – their ability to

remember past events, such

as what type of food

they hid and where,

and then use this

information to

REDEFINE

‘BIRD BRAIN’

Birds are cleverer than we give them credit for – that’s the central message of a new
book by cognitive biologist Dr Nathan Emery. He speaks to James Lloyd

ofa new

make decisions about the future.

Second, there’s what we call

‘social cognition’, which relates to

their awareness of others. For

example, we’ve shown that when

western scrub jays cache food in

the presence of other birds, they’ll

take steps to prevent it from being

stolen. And finally, a number of

species are able to make and use

tools to solve problems. There was

a famous New Caledonian crow

called Betty who bent a piece of

wire into a hook in order to reach

food, and we’ve even observed

rooks, who don’t use tools in the

wild, doing this in captivity. This is

especially impressive, as they’re

demonstrating this behaviour

spontaneously. Corvids and

parrots are very good at adapting

to new situations – that’s what sets

them apart.

What’s the most extraordinary

example of bird intelligence

that you’ve seen?

It can be overused – I talk about the

remarkable behaviour of scrub jays

when caching food. If another bird

was watching, they’d try to protect

their caches by moving them to a

different place or hiding them

behind a barrier. But what’s

really interesting is that only the

birds who’d been thieves

themselves in the past would

do this – it’s almost like their

own experiences had taught

them that the world is a bad

place. Birds who hadn’t

stolen before didn’t

protect their

caches, and so

were more likely

to have them

stolen. This thieving behaviour

might be akin to a ‘theory of mind’,

where the jays are able to think

about the knowledge and intentions

of their rivals.

Do you think we tend to

underestimate the smartness

of birds?

I think there are so many news

stories coming out about their

abilities that the term ‘bird brain’ is

beginning to take on a new meaning.

Even tiny, day-old chicks have

shown a limited form of intelligence,

being able to distinguish between

smaller and larger numbers. But

there’s a broad spectrum of

intelligence, and we still don’t know

that much about the majority of birds.

I’m hoping to start working with

ostriches, emus and rheas, but we

don’t have particularly high hopes for

these species – they’re the closest

living relatives of the dinosaurs and

are likely to have quite a primitive

intelligence. But they might surprise

us, as they must be reasonably

capable to have survived for so long.