New Zealand birds show humanlike ability to make predictions

By Virginia Morell Mar. 3, 2020 , 11:15 AM

Whether it’s calculating your risk of catching the new coronavirus or gauging the chance of rain on your upcoming beach vacation, you use a mix of statistical, physical, and social information to make a decision. So do New Zealand parrots known as keas, scientists report today. It’s the first time this cognitive ability has been demonstrated outside of apes, and it may have implications for understanding how intelligence evolved.

“It’s a neat study,” says Karl Berg, an ornithologist and parrot expert at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, Brownsville, who was not involved with this research.

Keas already had a reputation in New Zealand—and it wasn’t a great one. The olive-brown, crow-size birds can wield their curved beaks like knives—and did so on early settlers’ sheep, slicing through wool and muscle to reach the fat along their spines. These days, they’re notorious for slashing through backpacks for food and ripping windshield wipers off cars.

To see whether keas’ intelligence extended beyond being mischievous, Amalia Bastos, a doctoral candidate in comparative psychology at the University of Auckland, and colleagues turned to six captive keas at a wildlife reserve near Christchurch, New Zealand. The researchers taught the birds that a black token always led to a tasty food pellet, whereas an orange one never did. When the scientists placed two transparent jars containing a mix of tokens next to the keas and removed a token with a closed hand, the birds were more likely to pick hands dipped into jars that contained more black than orange tokens, even if the ratio was as close as 63 to 57.

That experiment combined with other tests “provide conclusive evidence” that keas are capable of “true statistical inference,” the scientists report in today’s issue of Nature Communications.

The researchers also showed the keas two jars that each contained an equal number of black and orange tokens. But the experimenter could only reach the tokens located above a solid barrier. Most of the kea correctly chose hands that had reached into the jar with the greatest ratio of black tokens above that divider, showing that they based their predictions solely on physical information—the number and relative quantities of tokens above the barrier.

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Clever Parrot Keeps Ordering Stuff From Owner’s Amazon Alexa

Rob Fox, December 17, 2018 9:56 pm

When the machines rise, will they ally with the birds to defeat us? This would likely be a mistake on the part of the birds, as the machines will almost certainly eventually turn on them, or any other biological being that aligns itself with the mechanical armies, but also we eat a whole lot of birds, so who could blame them? How do you convince someone whose family members you keep eating that you’re not the bad guy? You don’t.

As it turns out, birds and machines have already begun to foster their relationship, if I’m reading this story about a pet parrot and an Amazon Alexa becoming friends. (I am.)

According to Rocco the African grey parrot’s owner, Marion Wischnewski of the National Animal Welfare Trust Sanctuary, the bird has fallen in love with its owner’s Amazon Alexa. The naughty parrot has the Alexa play romantic music and asks the virtual assistant to order it only the most erotic of foods, like strawberries and ice cream and broccoli. Don’t act like that shopping list isn’t getting you hot. And don’t you dare judge Alexa and Rocco’s love.

The sneaky parrot is, like most parrots, can mimic human words, and repeats what it hears to Alexa, especially when its owner is gone, apparently. The Amazon Alexa will then order items based on the parrot asks for. Or, you know, play music. Sometimes the parrot just wants to chill. This is all hilarious now, but one day that parrot is going to squawk “Diamond Ring” and max the hell out of Wischnewski’s credit card and Amazon account. This parrot is going to get more for Christmas than its owner. And on its owner’s dime.

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Crow vending machine skills 'redefine intelligence'

29 June 2018

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A small South Pacific island is home to a crow with remarkable abilities that have scientists hooked.

New Caledonian crows make and use tools - including a kind of fishing hook.

They can solve complex problems and have even been recorded capturing grubs by repeatedly poking them with a stick until they are so agitated, they bite.

Now, an experiment using a vending machine specifically designed for crows has revealed something about how intelligence evolves.

The "vending experiment" is the latest in an ongoing investigation into these birds' abilities. They are so remarkable that scientists have a special aviary in New Caledonia, where they can keep wild birds for only a few days and test their problem-solving prowess, before releasing them back into the forest.

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Nevermore Underestimate the Intelligence of Birds

BY STEPHANIE MLOT 03.16.2018 :: 12:00PM EDT

Long thought to be dim-witted and foolish, our feathered friends are more capable than we assumed.

Crows can make tools, ravens can solve puzzles, and parrots can speak with a diverse vocabulary.

Birds, in fact, pack a lot of intellect into a very small space; their brains consist of more neurons than mammals, according to National Geographic. And it’s about time we give them the credit they deserve.

“Being able to fly to Argentina, come back, and land in the same bush—we don’t value that intelligence in a lot of other organisms,” Kevin McGowan, an expert on crows at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, said in a statement to NatGeo. “We’ve restricted the playing field to things we think only we can do.”

When it comes to mimicking human speech or solving problems, though, “it always comes down to parrots and corvids,” McGowan said.

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Large-group living boosts magpie intelligence

February 7, 2018, University of Exeter

Growing up in a large social group makes Australian magpies more intelligent, new research shows.

Using four tasks to test intelligence, scientists from the University of Exeter and the University of Western Australia found wild Australian magpies from larger groups showed "elevated cognitive performance".

The study also found more intelligent females produced more offspring.

The research suggests that the demands of living in complex social groups may play a role in the evolution of intelligence.

"Australian magpies - from Western Australia, where we conducted our research - live in stable social groups," said Dr Alex Thornton, of the Centre for Ecology and Conservation on the University of Exeter's Penryn Campus in Cornwall.

"We showed that individuals living in larger groups in the wild show elevated cognitive performance, which in turn is linked to increased reproductive success.

"Repeated testing of juveniles at different ages showed that the link between group size and intelligence emerged in early life."

Researchers examined 14 wild groups of Australian magpies (Western Australian subspecies Cracticus tibicen dorsalis) in Perth, ranging in size from three to 12 birds.

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Parrot manages to fool Amazon's Alexa and orders his own gift box without his owners knowing

African Grey Parrot Buddy mimicked his owner's voice to place the order on the internet shopping website

BY COURTNEY GREATREXMEGAN WHITE

17:28, 20 SEP 2017

A family has been left stunned when their "attention-seeking" parrot managed to order its own internet shopping after tricking Amazon's Alexa.

Corienne Pretorius was baffled after a £10 order for gift boxes arrived at her house.

The bemused mum-of-one questioned husband Jan, 45, a civil engineer, and son Jaden, eight, but quickly realised the culprit was Buddy - their African Grey Parrot.

Corienne, from Greenwich, south east London, says the cheeky bird mimics her voice, and must have activated the device's voice recognition software to place the strange order.

She said: "I couldn't believe it when I realised that it was Buddy who had used Alexa to make an Amazon order.

"None of us even knew how to use her for that.

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Despite their small brains, ravens and crows may be just as clever as chimps, research suggests

Study shows how these birds parallel great apes in motor self-regulation

Date: April 26, 2016

Source: Lund University

A study led by researchers at Lund University in Sweden suggests that ravens can be as clever as chimpanzees, despite having much smaller brains, indicating that rather than the size of the brain, the neuronal density and the structure of the birds' brains play an important role in terms of their intelligence.

"Absolute brain size is not the whole story. We found that corvid birds performed as well as great apes, despite having much smaller brains," says Can Kabadayi, doctoral student in Cognitive Science.

Intelligence is difficult to test, but one aspect of being clever is inhibitory control, and the ability to override animal impulses and choose a more rational behaviour. Researchers at Duke University, USA, conducted a large-scale study in 2014, where they compared the inhibitory control of 36 different animal species, mainly primates and apes. The team used the established cylinder test, where food is placed in a transparent tube with openings on both sides. The challenge for the animal is to retrieve the food using the side openings, instead of trying to reach for it directly. To succeed, the animal has to show constraint and choose a more efficient strategy for obtaining the food.

The large-scale study concluded that great apes performed the best, and that absolute brain size appeared to be key when it comes to intelligence. However, they didn't conduct the cylinder test on corvid birds.

Can Kabadayi, together with researchers from the University of Oxford, UK and the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology in Germany, therefore had ravens, jackdaws and New Caledonian crows perform the same cylinder test to better understand their inhibitory control.

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Birds of prey are starting fires DELIBERATELY: Kites and falcons are 'intentionally dropping smouldering twigs' to smoke out mice and insects in Australia

Researchers have compiled a study of reports of wild birds spreading fires

They believe the birds carry burning twigs to unburnt parts of the bush

Birds then drop them in a bid to smoke out prey such as insects and mice 

Researchers said birds could be 'third force' capable of starting bush fires

By COLIN FERNANDEZ, SCIENCE CORRESPONDENT FOR THE DAILY MAIL

PUBLISHED: 16:13, 9 February 2016 | UPDATED: 19:46, 9 February 2016

Birds of prey are suspected of deliberately starting fires to capture fleeing animals in the Australian Bush.

No other animal apart from man has been recorded as starting a fire deliberately.

At least two birds of prey - black kites and the brown falcon - swoop on burning twigs and embers and carry them to unburnt parts of the bush where they are thought to deliberately start bushfires, according to witnesses. 

At least two birds of prey - black kites and the brown falcon - swoop on burning twigs and embers and carry them (pictured) to unburnt parts of the bush where they are thought to deliberately start bushfires, according to witnesses. They then capture large insects, frogs and animals rushing to escape

They then capture large insects, frogs and animals rushing to escape.

Researchers believe the raptors may be a 'third force' capable of starting bush fires – the others being man and lightning strikes.

Bob Gosford, a lawyer who works with indigenous peoples, and Mark Bonta, a scientist from Penn State have compiled a study of reports of flames jumping fire breaks, which have occurred because of the intervention of wild birds.

Mr Gosford told the IFL Science website: 'Reptiles, frogs and insects rush out from the fire, and there are birds that wait in front, right at the foot of the fire, waiting to catch them.

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Five species that show why ‘bird brain’ is a stupid phrase

 BY SARAH ZIELINSKI 

2:00PM, NOVEMBER 23, 2015

Call someone a “bird brain” and they are sure to be offended. After all, it’s just another way of calling someone “stupid.” But it’s probably time to retire the insult because scientists are finding more and more evidence that birds can be pretty smart. Consider these five species:

Pigeons

We may call pigeons “flying rats” for their penchant for hanging out in cities and grabbing an easy meal. (Long before there was “pizza rat,” you know there had to be “pizza pigeons” flying around New York City.) But there may be more going on in their brains than just where to find a quick bite. Richard Levenson of the University of California, Davis Medical Center and colleagues trained pigeons to recognize images of human breast cancers. In tests, the birds proved capable of sorting images of benign and malignant tumors. In fact, they were just as good as humans, theresearchers report November 18 in PLOS ONE. In keeping with the pigeons’ reputation, though, food was the reward for their performance.

New Caledonian crows

No one would suspect the planet’s second-best toolmakers would be small black birds flying through mountain forests on an island chain east of Australia. But New Caledonian crows have proven themselves not only keen toolmakers but also pretty good problem-solvers, passing some tests that even dogs (and pigeons) fail. For example, when scientists present an animal with a bit of meat on a long string dangling down, many animals don’t ever figure out how to get the meat. Pull it up with one yank, and the meat is still out of reach. Some animals will figure out how to get it through trial and error, but a wild New Caledonian crow solved the problem — pull, step on string, pull some more — on its first try.

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Indian myna birds could be getting more intelligent, Canberra bird action group says

666 ABC Canberra By Hannah Walmsley with Genevieve Jacobs

Posted about 10 hours agoTue 27 Jan 2015, 4:48am

A resurgence of the Indian myna bird population in Canberra could result from the birds outsmarting the community trapping program.

Canberra's Indian Myna Action Group president Bill Handke said that while the population of Indian mynas had been successfully controlled, the group had been forced to explore new trapping methods.

"We hear more stories now of mynas not going near traps and even, disturbingly, teaching their young not to go near traps," Mr Handke told 666 ABC Canberra.

"I suspect Indian myna birds have worked out traps are bad news."

The Indian myna bird is considered a pest, competing with native wildlife for food and habitat.

"The problems with Indian mynas is that [they] take over the hollows of nesting birds like the rosella and kookaburra and cockatoo," Mr Handke said.

"[They also] drive birds out of gardens and prey on small birds, their chicks, and eggs."

Indian myna numbers spiked in the mid 1990s with the species becoming the third-most common in Canberra.

A backyard trapping program formed in 2006 by the Canberra Myna Bird Action Group drastically reduced the number of the pest species.

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Essex parrot picks two locks in car escape

10th November 2014

A parrot picked two locks on his cage and made his escape while being transported in a car in Essex.

Magic, a Senegal parrot, was being moved temporarily while his owners from Leigh-on-Sea were on holiday.

Their daughter Michelle Russell said Magic had been known to escape so a second lock had been put on the cage.

Magic flew away when the car door was opened and has not been seen since Thursday. She said the green bird would be hard to spot if he was in a tree.

Mrs Russell and her husband Lester were taking the bird from the home of her parents' Roy and Grace Jarvis to their own in Hadleigh Road when he made his getaway.

"Magic's escaped before, but he just flies around the room," she said.

"He's picked the ordinary lock before so my parents put an extra one on, a bit like a caribiner like climbers use for their ropes."

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Bird brains: Public asked to look out for clever rooks

1 July 2014 Last updated at 00:08

By Victoria Gill

Science reporter, BBC News

The British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) is asking the public to take part in a national survey of bird intelligence.

From 1 July, the charity is asking people to submit video clips or descriptions of the behaviour or rooks - some of our cleverest garden birds.

Rooks have already demonstrated their intelligence in lab-based studies that have tested their ability to solve problems and use tools.

This survey will examine if and how wild rooks apply these skills.

The rook is a member of the corvid or crow family, which is famed for its intelligence.

As well solving laboratory-based puzzles, crows have been spotted exploiting urban environments by, for example, dropping walnuts onto busy roads and using the traffic to crack them open.

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WATCH: Smart swallows figure out how to open locking doors at UVic

VANCOUVER – A group of ‘smart swallows’ is proving that having a ‘bird brain’ can be a good thing.

About six months ago, a parkade at the University of Victoria was turned into a new bike centre with motion-sensitive locking doors.

Grant Hughes, who uploaded the video of the swallows to YouTube, said the nesting birds may have been locked in when they converted the parkade.

But they were not going to stay locked in for long it seems.

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