[HN Gopher] The Magic of Bird Brains
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The Magic of Bird Brains
Author : chapulin
Score : 91 points
Date : 2024-03-07 13:50 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.newyorker.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.newyorker.com)
| the_shivers wrote:
| Disappointing to see the various crow garbage vending machines
| not pan out. I wonder of it's actually impossible or if it's just
| been poorly executed.
| nicklecompte wrote:
| > Mollaret seemed to think that, because crows are smart, their
| behavior should be predictable and programmable--even if his
| own behavior wasn't. He was treating ecology like a subset of
| mechanics, as though the crows themselves could be turned into
| cogs in a machine.
|
| In particular it's hard to get a crow to do tedious, boring
| chores for some almonds or whatever when they know there's
| relatively fresh pizza in a dumpster 2 blocks down the street.
| Swizec wrote:
| > In particular it's hard to get a crow to do tedious, boring
| chores for some almonds or whatever when they know there's
| relatively fresh pizza in a dumpster 2 blocks down the
| street.
|
| I have the same problem with my parrot. He's too smart and
| unlike dogs has zero desire to please. If he doesn't like the
| trick you're teaching him, or it's taking too long, he'll
| just fly to the nearest food bowl and help himself. He even
| knows where the treats are and will get them himself if
| you're taking too long.
|
| On the other hand, he actively prefers treats in foraging
| boxes. He'll fly to his treat bag, get your attention, then
| fly to a foraging puzzle and indicate "yo put that shit in
| here". They love foraging.
| yareally wrote:
| That sounds about right. You wouldn't happen have a Green
| Cheek Conure, would you?
| Swizec wrote:
| Sun/Jenday Conure mix
| yareally wrote:
| I have a cinnamon green cheek, exact same behaviors.
| Loves to forge, knows where all his treats are so we have
| to hide them. Goes nuts when he sees a walnut like a
| little dog. They're "cheeky" little guys :)
| Solvency wrote:
| Out in California, living near massive crow populations is a
| plus, because they terrorize the hell out of the hawks would
| otherwise mercilessly pick off your backyard chickens. It's truly
| impressive stuff, watching the crows coordinate comms and attacks
| from massive distances over a single hawk in the area.
| hinkley wrote:
| It does mean more rats though.
| Razengan wrote:
| Does the solution mean more cats?
| saagarjha wrote:
| But then your chickens are in danger again.
| Solvency wrote:
| I have two cats and there are at least 5 "working" feral
| cats from around the neighborhood that come through my
| yard all of the time. None of them, even the largest,
| have ever posed a single threat (or even interest) in my
| fully grown chickens.
|
| Chicks, on the other hand... but that's why chicks aren't
| free ranging.
| Exoristos wrote:
| No cat is going to hunt and kill a chicken.
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| I've seen Blue Jays do something similar, it started off as a
| single male jay dive bombing the hawk with 2-3 more Jays
| showing up in a few minutes. It occurred to me that the birds
| must have a "flee" call that's distinct from a "help" call
| because while they seemed to want to scare away the hawk I've
| seen them simply flee when a cat's around.
| KineticLensman wrote:
| Not a lot about bird brains in general, instead discussion of
| some informal experimentation with urban crows.
|
| I volunteer at a raptor conservation centre and have been
| impressed by the behaviours of the different birds, and the
| degree of mentation that is going on (or not). The smartest birds
| I met there were Caracaras [0] which could be trained to do
| various tricks, including carrying objects from one place to
| another, and could solve simple puzzles. Perhaps surprisingly,
| given their reputation for being wise, owls were some of the
| least intelligent, partly because their skulls have so much space
| occupied by their eyes compared with diurnal birds.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caracara_(genus)
| tech_ken wrote:
| Any reading recs for actual info on bird brains?
| tokai wrote:
| Olkowicz, et al. (2016) Birds have primate-like numbers of
| neurons in the forebrain
|
| https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.1517131113
| KineticLensman wrote:
| Sorry, nothing specific. A while ago I read 'Bird Sense' by
| Tim Birkhead but this is about their sensory systems rather
| than their intelligence as such, and is a bit discursive.
| There are a couple of useful starting points on Wikipedia,
| such as [0] and [1].
|
| In general, birds are sometimes surprisingly different to
| mammals. Their eyes are quite different. For example, raptor
| vision has a much higher acuity and framerate than ours, and
| many birds do different things with their left and right
| eyes. Their respiration is also different (including lungs
| that have 'in' and 'out' pipes), which allows something like
| a falcon to eat the moment it has finished hunting, unlike
| say a cheetah, which has to get its breath back before eating
| after a successful chase.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avian_brain
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bird_intelligence
| bwestergard wrote:
| Jennifer Ackerman's "The Bird Way"
| vadim_phystech wrote:
| awesome comment! Thank you, KineticLensman! (and nickname is
| also super cool)
| KineticLensman wrote:
| Thank you! Nickname is a play on where I used to work and one
| of my hobbies.
| ratrocket wrote:
| There's a great book about caracaras from a few years ago
| called "A Most Remarkable Creature: The Hidden Life and Epic
| Journey of the World's Smartest Birds of Prey" by Jonathan
| Meiburg. I highly recommend it! (And a trivia note, the author
| is perhaps better known as a musician, most notably in the
| bands Shearwater and Loma.)
|
| Book (no wiki link, but this seems OK):
| https://www.npr.org/2021/03/31/982631076/-a-most-remarkable-...
|
| Author: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Meiburg
|
| Didn't think I'd see caracaras mentioned when I opened up
| hacker news this morning, thanks!
| rotexo wrote:
| Second this book recommendation. He is a very engaging author
| (and his music is amazing too).
| anemoknee wrote:
| Jennifer Ackerman's The Genius of Birds is a great read on this
| subject.
|
| https://www.jenniferackermanauthor.com/genius-ofbirds
| strangattractor wrote:
| May I suggest the book "Mind of the Raven" by Bernd Heinrich.
| Excellently written and extremely interesting. He has spent a
| life time studying animal behavior in particular Corvidae.
|
| "Bernd Heinrich is a biologist and author of numerous books on
| the natural world. He lives in Richmond, VT, and in a cabin in
| the forests of western Maine."
|
| https://www.amazon.com/Mind-Raven-Investigations-Adventures-...
| vadim_phystech wrote:
| I'm sorry but this doesn't make any sense. How can you doubt that
| the cognitive potential of such animals, considering their
| typical set of solved tasks and occurring situations during
| lifetime, is much higher than solving some fking puzzles for
| kids? This is ridiculous! Well, you'll see soon what this and the
| next year gonna bring us in this context. I am sure YOU'LL SEE!
| (this is a !good! foreshadowing comment, let's be clear.)
| snapcaster wrote:
| Can you explain more? I'm not sure what you're arguing against
| or foreshadowing
| gwern wrote:
| The quote at the end from Eiseley is more interesting than it
| sounds: https://www.101bananas.com/library2/eiseley1.html It's
| about a crow being terrified to nearly fly into Eiseley's head on
| an extremely foggy day (where you couldn't see the ground), and
| Eiseley speculating that the crow inferred that Eiseley, uniquely
| among humans, had somehow learned to walk in the sky, and was
| scared of him ever after.
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