We have a phrase for this at the end of prayers. It goes "I do this because we are all related." Many years ago I had a run in with a large white Macaw. He was in a cage and I saw a beautiful white feather on the floor next to the cage. I picked it up and he squawked. As I held the feather the din increased. I reached inside my pocket and found a kernal of corn. I handed it to him and he curled his claws like fingers and took the corn. Now, I didn't know I had that corn and I also thought the bird would take it in his beak since I didn't know that Macaw's were capable of such delicate prestidigitation, but anyway, that bird delicately took that kernal from his claw to his beak and at the same time I felt as if it was alright to take the feather. Which I did.
As I turned to go I said, in my mind, this is ridiculous here I am negotiating with a dumb bird for a moulted feather that he had thrown away. How do I know this happened? It's all in my mind! All this bird can do is squawk, at which point I hear a counter thought that races through my brain like and arrow. "I can speak your language buster!" I guess he meant that I wasn't very good at understanding squawks although we try awfully hard to make them do our versions of intellect and they have the good grace to oblige us although I'm not sure why unless it has to do with our bad mannners in the environment. Ray Evans Harrell ----- Original Message ----- From: Keith Hudson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Saturday, February 16, 2002 2:45 AM Subject: Bird brains > Some time ago on FW we were talking of the origins of man's cognitive and > conceptual abilities. On the basis of a few glimpses from animal research, > I suggested that these abilities went back further than our own species, > and even before the rise of the hominids. Here are a few more glimpses of > this from an article in yesterday's FT: > > FEATHERED FRIENDS NOT SO BIRD-BRAINED AFTER ALL > > Clive Cookson > > If someone calls you "bird-brained", you should take it as a compliment, > not an insult. > > The American Association for the Advancement of Science annual meeting > heard heard yesterday that birds can show astonishing cognitive abilities, > sometimes surpassing those of apes or even humans. > > Recent research with captive and wild birds is convincing biologists that > cognition -- defined as the ability to take in large amounts of information > about the world and use it in decision-making -- is not restricted to > primates and other large-brained mammals such as whales and dolphins. > > Griffin, a grey parrot who lives in a laboratory of Irene Pepperberg at > Brandeis University, recently began to combine both objects (such as cups) > and sounds in specific orders to express his desires or observations about > the world. The activity seems remarkably similar to a young child playing > with toys and at the same time learning to speak. > > Examples of short "sentences" spoken by the parrot include "go back chair" > and "do you want grape?". Analysing Griffin's syntax and behaviour, Dr > Pepperberg showed that he was learning to combine words in a particular > order to express a particular thought, rather than mixing them at random. > > "The simultaneous emergence of both vocal and physical combinatorial > behaviour was thought to be a purely primate trait, derived from a primate > brain area," said Dr Pepperberg. "The fact that we are finding this in > animals so far removed from primates is exciting." > > Bird brains do not have a Broca's area, which neuroscientists think is the > seat of language development in humans. Whether the neural machinery > involved in ordering wordd and object patterns evolved separately in birds > and primates, or was inherited fropm a common ancestor before the age of > dinosaurs, is still a matter for speculation. > > Some birds communicate through songs. Young songbirds, parrots and humming > birds learn and memorise repertoires of up to 2,000 songs, rather like > infants learning to speak. > > "The special abilities that many songbirds have, just like we have, relate > to the ability to learn a [complex] vocal communication system," said > Donald Kroodsman of the University of Massachusetts. > > "Why learning evolved is one of the mysteries of communications. We'd like > to think that, looking at the songbirds, we might find some of the answers." > > Birdsong probably evolved as a form of sexual selection among males seeking > to impress potential mates. Dr Kroodsman's research suggests that > song-learning depends on birds' neighbourly instincts. > > It is characteristic of birds that remain in one place, or return > faithfully to the same site after migration. These birds learn all the > songs in their neighbourhood. But one subspecies of North American sedge > wren, which moves in small nomadic groups across the Great Plains and never > settles, has lost the ability to learn songs. Instead, each male makes up > its own small repertoire from scratch. > > Some birds also seem capable of a form of logical reasoning. Alan Bond and > Alan Kamil of the University of Nebraska trained captive jays to recognise > a sequence of seven colours in an arbitrary order of priority and then > presented the birds with pairs of colours. They got a reward by pecking the > highest colour. For example, if the order was red, green, blue and orange, > the birds had to work out that red was the correct choice when presented > with red and blue, but blue was correct when offered blue with orange. > > Birds from a social species, pinyon jays, performed much better than their > non-social relatives, the scrub jays. The researchers suggested that the > "Machiavellian hyphothesis", originally formulated for primates, might > apply to birds, too. According to the theory, this sort of reasoning > enables individuals to infer social relations among members of a large group. > > Memory and navigational skills are also remarkable well developed in some > birds. Dr Kamil investigated how birds such as jays and nutcrackers store > thousands of seeds in the autumn, each in a different place, and then find > them all again during the winter. It turns out that they use multiple > landmarks. Nutcrackers remember each seed's direction in relation to three > landmarks and use a form of triangulation process to find them. > >>>> > � Financial Times 15 February 2002 > > __________________________________________________________ > "Writers used to write because they had something to say; now they write in > order to discover if they have something to say." John D. Barrow > _________________________________________________ > Keith Hudson, Bath, England; e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > _________________________________________________ >
