The intelligence of birds (or — a skiing crow)

This video has been making the rounds, showing a Russian crow skiing, using a jar lid. It repeatedly grabs the lid, flies to the top of the roof, stands on it, and slides down the roof. Okay, maybe it’s sledding. Whatever it’s doing, it’s doing on purpose, and the purpose pretty clearly seems to be having fun.

There is more and more evidence piling up that humans don’t have a monopoly on intelligence or the ability to think. Animals and birds are increasingly found to be tool users and to be able to create tools to solve problems; that their ability to communicate is more advanced than we’ve given then credit for. We’re starting to see evidence of birds able to create concepts long thought to be the unique domain of humans.

I’ve lived with a cockatoo for twenty-some years now. She is about at the level of a four year old child — albeit one with a claw hammer and an air horn, which makes her hard to ignore when she puts her mind to it. She’s not a super linguist, but she uses volume and tone to get her point across (her primary word is “hello”, spoken 50 different ways).

She knows what the rules are. And like any four year old, there are times when she doesn’t care. So one of her tricks, when she’s not getting enough attention or not getting what she wants, is to break one of the rules — and then put herself into her cage for her time out before I can. (“if I do this, I get in trouble. I do this.”) — I’m convinced this is her way of showing an utter lack of respect for my authority (not that I need and hints where I stand in the pecking order around here). She knows what causes a time out; so when she does it, she does it and then goes and serves it. Just to make a point.

it’s not hard to see intelligence in these animals when you live with them.

Cockatoos are in many ways the same ecological niche as crows, and crows, like their cousin ravens, are well known for tool building or raising havoc, just because it amuses them.

Here’s a raven in Yosemite. What’s it doing? It’s attempting to break into an SUV. Why? Because it saw a power bar on the seat. But the door is closed and locked. Notice, though, that it’s figured out that the door handle is what controls the opening of the door. What you don’t hear is that every time the raven tried the door handle, it yelled a loud “BOOP! BOOP!” first.

Why? think about what you do when you get to your car. You pull out your wireless door unlocker thingie, push the unlock button. The car chirps and unlocks the door. Then you grab the handle and pull, and open it.

The raven is reproducing those actions as well as it can. It doesn’t have a wireless remote, but it’s trying to simulate the sound of the door unlocking, because as far as it can tell, it’s the sound that unlocks the door.

God help us if ravens ever invent lock picks.

(but think about just how far down the logic chain this bird’s gotten. It’s figured out to open the door, you have to use the handle. to unlock the door, you have to get that “bloop! bloop!” sound. This is not “random stuff happens and if I get lucky the door opens”, it’s figured out a lot of details that are not trivia — and gotten them right.

This is why I’m fascinated by birds.

Here’s a raven in Yellowstone. he and his cohort have found a pickup with a a bunch of stuff in it. Very likely, they can smell the food in the ice chest that’s in the back of that truck, under the tarp (by the way, this is a bad idea in bear country. the bear will win this fight, where the ravens won’t).

We sat and watched these birds for about ten minutes. This one had one of the knots about 90% untied when they were chased off by the owners of the car returning. They had a solid plan of attack — and they were untying the knots to move the tarp, not just tugging at things or trying to rip through the material.

This is why skiing crows surprise me not one bit….

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