 | The Genius of Birds provides a fascinating exploration of the astounding ways our feathered cousins have adapted to our world. The author investigates how birds can anticipate storms from far away; how they learn and imitate songs; how they remember where they’ve hidden seeds and how they can remember where they put them months later "over hundreds of square miles.” Research revels that bird’s brains function similarly to human’s in the areas activated for learning birdsong or speech. One scientist said: “mammalian brains are likes PCs…while bird brains are like Apples. The processing is different, but the output is similar.” |
“Both birds and humans use similar brain circuits to produce their vocalizations.” Young birds’ “early efforts [at singing] are known as subsong, and they’re just like a baby’s babbling—noisy variable, exploratory. It’s motor ‘play,’ which helps both birds and infants learn to control the muscles required for song and speech.”
 | Birdsong often functions as a language. Chickadees, for example, “use their calls to convey their location to another bird or to twitter news of a tasty treat; others, to warn of predators—both the type of beast and the magnitude of its threat. … So reliable are the chickadees’ vocalizations that other species heed their warnings.” |
 | Because songbirds pass their songs down through the generations, they can develop regional dialects. I witnessed this in eastern Tennessee, where the eastern mourning doves had an ‘accent” compared to the ones near St. Louis: a much shorter second syllable “coo-AHHH” and missing the last syllable of “coo, coo, coo.” |
One of my favorite stories was of clever birds in the United Kingdom (great and blue tits) who learned to peel the cardboard caps off glass milk bottles left on peoples’ stoops and drink the cream off the top. They first learned this trick in “1921 in the town of Swaythling; by 1949, the behavior had been noted in hundreds of localities throughout England, Wales, and Ireland.”
 | Corvids (crows, jays, magpies, ravens, and rooks) are one of the most clever bird species. Crows learned to use a busy crosswalk in Japan to crack nuts by dropping them in front of passing cars, then retrieving them when the light changed. Scientists also documented a crow using tricks from Aesop’s fable, The Crow & the Pitcher, to get tasty treats in a variety of experiments by dropping stones into a water-filled tube. |
In Oregon, a pair of ravens defended their nestlings from intruding researchers by tossing rocks at the researchers. “A rock that struck a researcher in the leg [had been] pulled out of the ground, where it had been partially buried.”
 | Researchers know that blue jays can “count to at least five. And they can neatly mimic the piercing cry of a red-shouldered hawk, kee-ah, kee-ah, which they often do, perhaps to fool other birds into believing there’s a raptor in the vicinity, leaving more nuts for the taking." A favorite trick of the scrub jay "is to rob a cat of its food by giving its tail a vigorous peck and when the cat turns to retaliate, to jump for the prize and make off with shrieks of exaltation.” |
A New Caledonian crow named 007 was able to figure out a complex, eight-stage puzzle. These brainy crows hail from an island east of Australia, where crows in different parts of the islands have different tool-making traditions, all aimed at extracting nutrient-dense grubs from tree wood.
 | There are other crows in similar environments that haven’t learned to use tools to access grubs. Scientists believe the relative isolation from predators in New Caledonia gave these crows “the time and ease of mind to tinker with sticks and barbed leaves, to poke and probe, to bite and tear, and then probe again, without looking up. Freedom from threats may also have allowed for the evolution of a more leisurely childhood, in which young crows under the watch of their parents could dabble safely in toolmaking, refining their skills over a long period of time without starving in the process.” |
 | Kea parrots in New Zealand are mischievous tricksters, “destructive hoodlums that go around in juvenile gags trashing things, deconstructing windshield wipers and the vinyl trim on cars, as well as campers’ tents and backpacks, rain gutters, and outdoor furniture. The kea’s playfulness with objects may allow them develop a “toolkit” of behaviors for dealing with novel situations or unexpected foraging conditions.” |
Keas play catch, roll snowballs to each other, and like to roughhouse: “The partners parry and duel with their beaks, ducking, thrusting, ducking again. They tussle, lock bills, bite, push with their feet, roll onto their backs while squealing and waving their feet, and stand on each other’s stomachs.”
But these unique alpine parrots are losing their habitat due to the climate crisis and rising temperatures. “Because a mountain is like a pyramid, there’s less area for habitat available as [climate-stressed species] move up the mountain. They’re being squeezed both by temperatures and for space.”
But these unique alpine parrots are losing their habitat due to the climate crisis and rising temperatures. “Because a mountain is like a pyramid, there’s less area for habitat available as [climate-stressed species] move up the mountain. They’re being squeezed both by temperatures and for space.”
Birds also have highly evolved social skills for communal living: “They breed on colonies, bathe in groups, roost in congregations, forage in flocks. They eavesdrop. They argue, they cheat, they deceive and manipulate. … They display a strong sense of fairness. They give gifts. They play keep-away and tug-of-war with twigs, strands of Spanish mass, bits of gauze. They pilfer from their neighbors. They warn their young away from strangers. They tease, they share. They cultivate social networks. They vie for status. They kiss to console one another. … They summon witnesses to the death of a peer, they may even grieve.”
 | One of the most interesting social groupings are the extended families among pied babblers: “Family groups are dominated by a single breeding pair, along with several other adults that don’t [breed]; all the adults in the group dote on the young, helping to brood, feed, and care for them.” Adults help train fledglings, who “blackmail adults into feeding them at higher rates by venturing into riskier open locations.” |
The author notes that roughly 80% of bird species live in “socially monogamous” pairs who stay with the same partner at least through breeding season. But this doesn’t equate with genetic monogamy. “ In any given nest, up to 70% of chicks are not sired by the male caring for them. Pair-bonded birds may be socially monogamous. But they’re rarely sexually (or therefore genetically) monogamous.”
The author’s language suggests males are "tricked" into raising bastard nestlings by sneaky females, but this relies on the patriarchal assumption that genetic paternity matters to male birds. It’s probable that male-bird parents, like the nonbreeding adults among pied babblers, know the young aren’t necessarily sired by their own sperm and simply don’t care.
The author’s language suggests males are "tricked" into raising bastard nestlings by sneaky females, but this relies on the patriarchal assumption that genetic paternity matters to male birds. It’s probable that male-bird parents, like the nonbreeding adults among pied babblers, know the young aren’t necessarily sired by their own sperm and simply don’t care.
 | Bird nests are a highly visible example of bird genius. One of the most elaborate and artistic constructions are made by the bowerbirds of Australia and New Guinea. They construct a tunnel-like bower for mating, and decorate the courtyard and avenue leading to the bower with colorful objects meant to attract and impress females. |
Different species of bowerbirds favor specific color combinations: satin bowerbirds prefer blue and silvery, shiny objects; Vogelkop bowerbirds decorate their designs with brightly colored orchid blossoms, fruit, and iridescent beetle wings; great bowerbirds use a monochromatic display often incorporating white stones, bleached bones, and snail shells.
It takes about seven years for male bowerbirds to learn the craft, often by helping senior males, although some juvenile satin bowerbird hoodlums were caught stealing by a robot decoy bird.
It takes about seven years for male bowerbirds to learn the craft, often by helping senior males, although some juvenile satin bowerbird hoodlums were caught stealing by a robot decoy bird.
 | When a female arrives at a bower, the males dance. “Some males are attentive. If a female seems alarmed, they will rein in their display, tempering their wing flipping and giving her some distance. Other males are oblivious. The responsive dudes, it turns out, are those that secure the most matings.” Visual acuity may contribute to the artistic displays of bowerbirds. While the cone cells in human eyes see three colors, birds can see four (including ultraviolet). “Moreover, in each bird’s cone cell is a drop of colored oil that enhances its ability top detect differences between similar colors.” |
In terms of evolution, the tastes of female bowerbirds encourage male artistry: only the most attractive bowers and attentive male dancers attract mates. “The beauty of the bower is shaped by the perception of the female. …her mind shapes male display; she is the architect of the male bird’s artistic creation and the brains required to achieve it.”
Throughout the book , the author demonstrates how evolution both fosters innovation and selects for cognitive growth to exploit those innovations. Whether it’s tool use, replicating precise songs, or navigating the complex social relationships of a large group, activities that require mental processing create evolutionary pressure towards greater cognition, creating smarter birds.
Throughout the book , the author demonstrates how evolution both fosters innovation and selects for cognitive growth to exploit those innovations. Whether it’s tool use, replicating precise songs, or navigating the complex social relationships of a large group, activities that require mental processing create evolutionary pressure towards greater cognition, creating smarter birds.
 | House sparrows are known for their adaptability, which has allowed them to co-exist with humans. In Normal, Illinois, “two ecologists watched house sparrows working their way along a line of parked cars in a parking lot, gleaning insects trapped in the radiators. …In some cities, you can find cigarette butts in sparrow nests, which effectively function as a parasite repellent.” |
The author quotes Leon Megginson of the importance of adaptability: “It’s not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent . . . It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.”
Yet: “The wisdom is that humanity is driving roughly half of all known life to extinction, including one in four species of birds.” Most of these are specialist birds, but even sparrow numbers are declining.
Yet: “The wisdom is that humanity is driving roughly half of all known life to extinction, including one in four species of birds.” Most of these are specialist birds, but even sparrow numbers are declining.
The Genius of Birds is a fabulous exploration of birds’ intelligence and creativity, with many more inspiring stories than the few I've highlighted. And yet we still have much to learn about these fascinating creatures. The author closes with a quote by Albert Einstein:
“As a human being, one has been endowed with just enough intelligence to be able to see clearly how utterly inadequate that intelligence is when confronted with what exists.”
“As a human being, one has been endowed with just enough intelligence to be able to see clearly how utterly inadequate that intelligence is when confronted with what exists.”
Read more about bird and animal intelligence: Being a Bird, Animal Emotions,
An Immense World, The Salmon Cannon and the Levitating Frog,
If Nietzsche Were a Narwhal, Sounds Wild and Broken
An Immense World, The Salmon Cannon and the Levitating Frog,
If Nietzsche Were a Narwhal, Sounds Wild and Broken
