Bird Brains

Harsh conditions accompany every winter in the remote hills of the Canadian Shield. For the birds, an elaborate feeding station is like a desert oasis.

Up with the dawn, I carry a 20 kilo bag of seed over my shoulder, filling each feeder, one at a time. Noisy blue jays, chattering chickadees and countless finches arrive from all directions. Behind me, like a faithful puppy, a bold downy woodpecker follows me from one feeder to the next. After emptying half the bag, I figure out the reason for the downy's interest.

Poking out of my bulging coat pocket is a large slab of beef suet, its favourite winter food. I hold out the greasy ball of fat. Only a metre away, the woodpecker peeks from either side of the thin birch trunk, contemplating whether it should land on my hand. After a minute, I hastily place the chunk into a suet cage. Immediately, the woodpecker flies toward breakfast.

I interpret this interaction as a form of learned behaviour. Observing its surroundings, and dispelling its fear, the bird follows the food source - the suet hidden in my pocket. I imagine the woodpecker's simple thought process - it sees the food magically appear each Saturday after the Homo sapiens step out of their dwelling with discarded food.

This kind of fast adaptation is well documented. We only have to visit a shopping mall or a fast food restaurant to watch it unfold. Try waving a french fry over your head outside a burger shop. The result is a flurry of begging gulls, unconcerned with the "Super Size" health issue (maybe if we give them more time to evolve...).

Ravens are among my favourite creatures, arguably the smartest, and most aware of birds. They have the largest brains of all avian creatures. Their intelligence is legendary, a part of much folklore, but also scientifically documented. They even cooperate with other species. The large corvids are known to alert wolves to the presence of prey. The pack kills its prey and opens the carcass, something ravens can't do. Once the wolves are done, the birds are free to finish the spoils.

Their smarts seem to go beyond practical purposes. I can enjoy ravens' playful flights, their acrobatic aerial somersaults. I'm also amused by their rich vocabulary - countless croaks, grunts, clucks and screams. But, it's their social interactions that grab me most. I once watched them team up to distract tied-up malamutes. The dogs barked incessantly while other ravens sneaked from behind to steal their Puppy Chow.

We need to give birds more credit for intelligence. African Gray parrots involved in elaborate research programs are compared to chimpanzees and dolphins, some with vocabularies of almost a thousand words. And, not just gibberish - they are communicating simple mathematical tasks, time perception, humour and even intuitive thought. Not bad for a descendent of the dinosaurs. And, where would Homo sapiens be today if birds had developed opposable thumbs on their wings?