Talk:Bird intelligence

Adapting To Man-Made Environment
I witnessed an interesting incident at about 2PM, June 24, 2006 in Toms River, New Jersey. I was driving in moderate, but fast moving local traffic at about 35 to 40 MPH (56 to 64 kmPH).

Suddenly a small bird, that was being chased in flight by a much larger bird, flew in front of the car in front of me (a small car, with low road clearance) and underneath it. The larger bird just barely flew out of the way of the oncoming car, while the smaller bird flew out from behind the car and away, with significant extra distance between it and the larger bird (the larger bird may have been surprized or stunned by the near collision of it and the car and appeared to break off the chase).

This seems to me to be a good example of the smaller bird adapting to and utilizing the man-made environment, the fast moving automobiles on the road that is, to survive the attack of the larger bird.

Remember this the next time you hear somebody use the word birdbrain.

72.82.195.34 13:27, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

Erm, what?
"A controversial study conducted by Ryan B. Reynolds has suggested budgerigars are able to form simple, meaningful sentences. The evidence consists so far of only audio files, but they have yet to be either proven or disproven."

If it has not been proven, why is it mentioned here?

Since the reference isn't a peer reviewed journal, I'd have to query it's weight as a source. The source also mentioning telepathy raises another flag about its suitability.

I have not edited the article, I leave that to someone prepared to take on the "flouride mind control" crowd.203.129.36.8 06:17, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

weirdness moved from article
Another study conducted with pigeons showed that the birds were able to distinguish between the artworks of different artists. For example, they could tell the difference between a Picasso and a Monet.

Cockatiels can count. Females lay five eggs. Take one away? She lays another. Take them all? She lays five more. Female pet cockatiels have a shorter life span than males due to the reproductive nutritional stress on the body. Minimize reproduction by allowing her sit continuously on the same batch of eggs. (Remove them just before they're scheduled to hatch and replace all five if she starts nesting again). To convince the pair to stop, you can rearrange the inside of their cage. If that doesn't work you can change the position of their cage in the room as well. They are that sensitive to novel circumstances.

The first paragraph is rather weird in terms of content, so it needs sources and specification (a study by whom, conducted when, etc.?). The second paragraph is written in a style that sheds doubt on the veracity of its content as well.--91.148.159.4 18:28, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Another move
I don't doubt the following information so much, but as another anon editor removed it, and as it has been unreferenced since October 2006, I think it is reasonable to keep it here rather than in the article. --91.148.159.4 12:06, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Conceptual skills
Some birds, notably pigeons, have demonstrated the ability to conceptualize. In one study, conducted at Harvard in 1964, it was shown that pigeons have a general concept of "human," which includes male humans and female humans, individual body parts, and the human body from the back, from below, and from above. When shown photographs of all of the above, the pigeons recognized the photos as "human." They also recognized photographs of human beings in "disguise" (i.e, a human in the nude, wearing strange clothes, or shown out of proportion).

I proofread a bit
Just for fun, I had a go at some language in this article. I do not think I made any substantive change at all, as I tried not to do so.Songflower 22:15, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Excellent work. Shyamal 02:31, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Penguins
I want to ask how are penguins intelligent? They are non-flying birds and can have large brain, but I can't find any information about their brain and intellectual abilities. Til. 29.03.07 —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 213.227.194.147 (talk) 09:26, 29 March 2007 (UTC).

Detour test + comments
I'd like to see some explanation here. How do cats "fail" the test? How does the test factor out differences in sensory biology? I'm assuming animals that hunt by sight (like cats) will be worse at it that animals that follow the scent (like pigs).

Just as an aside, the article seems to have been written by a bird enthusiast trying to counter the "bird brain" perception. As a fish enthusiast perfectly aware that many fishes are quite smart animals, I'm not unsympathetic. But I'd like a sense from the article of what proportion of birds have been tested for intelligence, and to what degree certain taxa (say, corvids or parrots) account for most of the "positive" examples of bird intelligence. There also needs to be made clearer the distinction between fixed instincts (such as the oystercatcher choosing the biggest egg-like object in range) that fit the image of "dumb birds" and the flexible ones (like blue tits learning to open milk bottles to get the cream). Also, there's some flipping back and forth between intelligence and sensory biology. I'd like to see that cleared up. The traditional approach in animal biology text books is simply to cover the sense first, then instincts, and then plastic behaviours ("intelligence").

Finally, there's a dearth of links explaining important terms. A lot of phrases, such as "environmental cues", "detour test", "auditory signals", "conspecifics", and so on have very specific meanings that may be self-evident to experts but are less so for casual readers.

Cheers, Neale Neale Monks 18:33, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Feel free to make the amends. From what I can see, the number of birds tested are few. Regarding the detour test, I think the statement is a second-hand citation from J P Scott (I supposed it used a glass screen. Could be outdated/incorrect given this ). Feel free to tag what you think needs citations, can look out for those or delete that which is untraceable. Shyamal 18:22, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Brain anatomy: XXth century
What's up with the use of "XXth century" in place of 20th century or twentieth century? I've never seen this used before. --GreenRiot 08:46, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Work to be done at Brain
Hi guys, anyone of you who might want to flesh out the 2 lines at Brain with some bird-brain stuff? Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 12:08, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Density of Brain Cells
Research published in 2016 has show that birds have much higher density of the brain cells than mammals. Here is the Guardian article, which references a paper in Science: https://www.theguardian.com/science/neurophilosophy/2016/jun/15/birds-pack-more-cells-into-their-brains-than-mammals Stephen Mikesell 13:54, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

Amateur youtube source?
How terrible of a source is an amateur youtube "experiment" for proving something like object permanence? All the linked videos seem to come from this channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/xBoogieStarx. A quick look and you'll understand how shaky and thoroughly unscientific the videos are. These references are only useful for generating views for that channel, and not for proving any of the claims in the text, which appears to be their intention. I suggest they are removed and replaced by something which would stand up to basic scientific integrity checks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 37.251.94.113 (talk) 23:06, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

Cockatoo dancing.
Research conducted with a Sulphur-crested Cockatoo named Snowball has shown that birds can learn to dance to human-made music.

Cookie does this, too. He's a Mitchell's cockatoo, and has been at Brookfield zoo since it first opened. --70.131.55.167 (talk) 15:35, 7 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Palm Cockatoos have been observed drumming with sticks to attract mates, Here's a video.--66.183.46.74 (talk) 06:48, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

And more recent research that has appeared in the media has shown Snowball has at least 14 different dance moves and choreographs his own dance. Plus dances in time with the beat of the music. Here is the Guardian article about it: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2019/jul/08/cockatoo-choreographs-his-own-dance-moves-researchers-believe They reference a paper in Current Biology: https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(19)30604-9 Stephen Mikesell 13:48, 11 July 2019 (UTC)  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Singing Coyote (talk • contribs)

The claims about bird intelligence...
...are not sufficiently proved by what is said in the article and the talk page, if at all true.

More likely, the proponents have no true understanding of intelligence, and take the ability to do very, very simple tasks requiring little brain power as more than they truly are. To put things into perspective, counting to five is a trivial task, not even worthy of mention, compared to making a coordinated landing. That one class or species of animals has or does not have the ability to count to five proves nothing. Only when looking at greater and more general abilities is it relevant to truly speak of intelligence in a non-trivial sense. I have never heard of signs of such intelligence in birds; if there are such signs, please provide them. 94.220.254.186 (talk) 11:42, 11 February 2010 (UTC)


 * What claims are you specifically referring to that aren't 'proven' by the article? What proponents cited by the article have no true understanding of intelligence, and what would you suggest they're missing? What sort of general abilities are relevant and why are they more worthy of mention than common intelligence indicators like numerical ability? 98.246.1.126 (talk) 01:07, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

Is what you intended to say "not heard" or "not looked for"? There has been voluminous research on the topic: dancing, human speech, working out problems with multiple steps, understanding of symbols, crows passing abstract knowledge across generations, and so on. I've watched my own chickens develop strategies for dealing with predators such as hawks and raccoons through (bad) experiences with them, and they also constantly appraise signals from other birds. Crows furthermore will make false warnings to trick the chickens to run for cover so they can steal food. I've observed that domesticated chickens in Nepal roam over large areas of which they seem to have topographic awareness, knowing exactly where to go for stepping stones down terraces or across creeks, where to go for specific kinds of browsing, etc. What the wild ones in the forests do there is still another issue worthy of study. One of my chickens got out and not only survived but flourished in our suburban neighborhood on her own for months. What human could have done the same? One problem is we judge intelligence relative to our own experience and values, while devaluing behaviors that are relative to animals' own experience and milieu as merely instinctual. As the philosopher of science, Alfred North Whitehead pointed out, things we think are distinctly human have incipient existence or emergent properties on even the most simple and fundamental levels (I forget the exact terms he used), and human thought too, even on the most complex levels, always contains physical and subconscious premises. Anthropologists have shown that the human brain evolved through a combined evolution of brain, hand, upright stance and engagement with forest and savanna ecosystems, all working in feedback with each other. These preceding conditions of human development have given immense scope of activity but also they inserted limitations which may also be our downfall. Rather than learning to live in forests, as birds do, humans burned them wherever they went as they spread out of Africa to better reproduce savanna conditions they evolved within in Africa. Human exploitation of sequestered ecosphere carbon (grasslands, soil, forests, cetaceans, coal, petroleum and natural gas) whose powers we attribute with characteristic hubris to our intelligence may prove to be our downfall. Some, or maybe even many, birds, on the other hand, will likely survive as they have done through a number of other planetary catastrophes far longer than us mammalian upstarts. Stephen Mikesell 15:00, 11 July 2019 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Singing Coyote (talk • contribs)

Self awareness
The 'Self awareness' section seems a bit fishy. It only talks about a single experiment, cites no sources, and is very long winded. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.193.108.88 (talk) 09:41, 12 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes. This was largely the work of, and need rewriting and proper sourcing. --Epipelagic (talk) 10:33, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

Sled using Raven
[] Tool use + mimicry?142.167.240.130 (talk) 00:02, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

Ayn Rand as a source
Today, when writing an article on conceptual skills and concepts in general, I remembered a section from Ayn Rand's intro to objectivist epistemology in which she stated that corvids had been observed to count to three. I figured this would be a good thing to reference and went on to search for the original source. I stumbled upon this article and found the same claim made here, but, much to my dismay, had to find out that the source used here is Mrs Rand once more. Since she does not reference it at all in her book, I have to conclude that she came up with the story herself to support her own views and suggest the respective section of the article to be removed. 2001:4C80:40:4B6:21E:C9FF:FE60:BADE (talk) 09:45, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

Kea
I have no idea what this sentence means: "An analysis by a group at Massey University is that they are the most intelligent bird in not blurting. They theorize that 'each baronial song has a reason' whether this is knowledge is abstruse". Can anyone translate it into plain English?Royalcourtier (talk) 04:31, 10 June 2015 (UTC)

Is this article biased towards positive examples?
There must be a lot of research demonstrating the lack of some aspects of bird intelligence (for example what part of the birds' behaviour is instinctive). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 158.129.140.71 (talk) 11:04, 9 March 2016 (UTC)


 * Well, this is an article about bird intelligence, not autonomous behaviors. One of the complications, though, is that avian cognition is intertwined with autonomous behaviors, just as it is with humans. Flocking, for instance, seems driven by instinct and genetics. But instinct is heavily mediated by intelligence, so the two aren't easily teased apart. Daniel Lewis, Ph.D. 17:09, 1 May 2022 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hilokid (talk • contribs)

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Numeracy
The sentence "It has been shown that parrots can count up to 6" seems to be derived from somewhat old references. A news item from the journal Nature (http://blogs.nature.com/news/2012/02/alex-the-parrots-last-experiment-shows-his-mathematical-genius.html) from February 2012 (not new, but newer than the references cited) refers to a published article which reports that Alex, the same gray parrot on which the quoted earlier studies were performed, had learnt to count up to 8. I wonder though whether this larger number is any sign of intelligence, or whether the fact that a parrot can learn to count is the interesting thing. SurgicalSutures (talk) 05:51, 19 March 2021 (UTC)

Oh, and the bird could add as well SurgicalSutures (talk) 05:52, 19 March 2021 (UTC)

Confusing passage
The second paragraph in the section Counting begins as follows:

"Counting has traditionally been considered an ability that shows intelligence. Anecdotal evidence from the 1960s has suggested that crows can count up to 3. Researchers need to be cautious, however, and ensure that birds are not merely demonstrating the ability to subitize, or count a small number of items quickly."

Wait. If "subitize" means to "count a small number of items quickly", then why does a researcher studying birds' counting need to ensure that birds are not doing that?

I hope that someone knowledgeable about this subject will fix this confusing passage. 2601:200:C000:1A0:B59E:A2CE:E435:7F1C (talk) 23:03, 20 March 2021 (UTC)


 * Here's another confusing passage:

''One proposed definition of tool use was defined by T. B. Jones and A. C. Kamil in 1973 as "the use of physical objects other than the animal's own body or appendages as a means to extend the physical influence realized by the animal"

By this definition, a bearded vulture (lammergeier) dropping a bone on a rock would not be using a tool since the rock cannot be seen as an extension of the body.


 * Wait a second: The whole point of the definition is that physical objects other than the animal's own body or appendages have to be used. So how does this attempt at an explanation make sense? Ikan Kekek (talk) 05:28, 10 October 2023 (UTC)