Birdbrain is a slur for which we should apologize to our feathered friends. Ackerman goes out with the researchers doing the work and lays out what birds actually pull off. New Caledonian crows manufacture hooked tools out of twigs and keep the good ones. Scrub jays cache thousands of seeds and remember not just where but when, and which ones will have rotted. Bowerbirds build and decorate structures they don’t live in, arranging objects by size to fake perspective for the viewer. Chickadees grow their hippocampus in fall and shrink it in spring. She’s good on the fact that bird brains are wired nothing like ours and get to the same place anyway.
The Genius of Birds