Bird Brain

At the beginning of the video we are introduced to Conrad Laurence, a researcher from the 1930’s, who was interested in the study of how animals think. He was studying geese saying that their behavior is already wired into their brain, when they hatched usually they would follow their mother but this time they were following Laurence. He would remove a bird egg from a mother and she would do the same movement as if there was an egg there. He proposed that “what looks like intelligent behavior is really driven by instinct(2:07)”. We are also introduced to the string pull test.This is where birds have to pull a string up to get a reward. “It shows that birds can solve problems by thinking about them(8:59)”. Isabella Schaefer shows that there is more to the goose mind than just instinct. She would order seven different colors in a specific order with different pairs. She changes up the pairs to see if they know the order of the highest card. The geese would memorize which color was highest most of the time. She shows that geese are social animals and that they know “their place in the social hierarchy(33:39)”. There were also other tests showing how the Kea bird species work together among groups for food. Raoul Schwing, researches the Kea bird calls and how the birds structure their calls differently to communicate with each other. Auguste von Bayern is a researcher that works with crows and tested their ability to use sticks to attain food. She compared to how the Kea bird and Crow would get a peanut from inside a platform using different ways. Comparing this to the National Geographic article about why birds matter, the author discussed how birds have to learn how to adapt to live in areas where others can’t. Countless times in this documentary there are several times where birds prove to show they can figure out puzzles that would be complex for other animals. There was another puzzle that researchers used on kids, whether to eat one chocolate immediately or to wait 5 minutes and receive another chocolate. The researchers found that the more a raven likes the food the more willing it is to wait for it. They also observed that birds hide their food if they have too much and that they also hide useless things like toys. The reason they hide toys is because they put it in place of food to test other ravens to see who will steal it and who will be honest. “They are finding out who is likely to steal their food(52:00)’. This sounds like something a human would do as well, and in “Why Birds Matter” we read about how the author feels like a connection to birds and this shows how similar birds can think like humans. I believe this documentary helped me realize how well birds can adapt to challenges and also work together.