Bird Brain! 4/18

Today I watched "Bird Brain" and took a few notes about it. First I will talk about a few researchers and their work. Then I will list two important excerpts from the documentary. Last, I will summarize the most important ideas from "Bird Brain" and tell you my findings.

Researchers:

1. John Marzluff: John is a professor of wildlife science and habitat relationships at the University of Washington. His work with birds is in-depth and important to the future of bird studies (4:42).

2. Konrad Lorenz: Lorenz was an Austrian zoologist, ethologist, and ornithologist. He is most well known for doing some of the earliest studies on the lives of birds. He worked with geese and tried to find the difference between born traits and imprinting (4:57).

3. Ludwig Huber: Huber is an Austrian zoologist and cognitive biologist at the Messerli Research Institute at the University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna. He is the co-founder head of the Unit of Comparative Cognition and works on bird patterns, specifically kia parrots. (10:32)

Excerpts:

1. "When the bird continues the motion even after the egg is gone, that implies that the behavior is more or less instinctive. The bird isn't consciously thinking through the consequences of its actions" (6:22). This quote stood out to me because it is talking about the birds' instinctive habit to protect any egg-like object. The bird will almost mindlessly protect any object that is in the nest because it assumes it is an egg. I thought the quote was interesting because it showed that birds are more likely to be born with these traits than learn them over time.

2. "Birds brains may be tiny, but for their size they seem to contain more brain cells... Or neurons... Than many other animals. The number of neurons is a better indication of brain power than the physical size of the brain (13:15). I chose this quote because it covers the main point of the documentary. Birds may have small brains, but the amount of neurons is far more than some other animals. This is what gives them high brain power. I liked this quote because it explained why birds may be smarter than we think.

Summary:

The documentary "Bird Brain" was an interesting set of studies on several different types of birds. It started off with a study about how some bird did tasks based on inherent habits. The example here was of a goose protecting an egg in its nest, but when the egg was replaced with a block, it still protected it like its own (6:22). This study made me think of the TIME article, "Animals Have Brains, But Do They Have Minds?" Specifically, there was one quote that I remembered that stuck out to me. It was that "While the idea of animals as automata does not sit well with everyone, it's worth remembering that even human beings have periods of performing both basic and very complex functions with absolutely no awareness that we're doing it" (Kluger). This reminded me of how geese protected the egg/egg-like object without thinking and are animals just like us. It leads to the idea that maybe birds are similar to us in their cognitive processing. Besides this study, there were also many test with puzzles for birds to get peanut butter out of hard places (10:51), cavemen masks to see if they could identify predators (46:47), and hiding their toys to see if they would look for them (44:02).

Overall, there were many good studies in this documentary with crows, parrots, and other bird to test if they had some cognitive abilities in the same ways as humans. I think that the overall message of the documentary is that birds may have theory of mind in the same way as humans (49:49). They do not just have instinctive behaviors, but they can have real emotions and perspectives in the same ways as humans. They can see the world in similar ways as us. After all of the tests, they have realized that birds can feel happy and sad in the same way as humans. This led them to the conclusion that birds emotions are closer to humans than we may have thought before. This documentary is very important because it makes me as the audience wonder if birds are not the only species who can have higher cognitive ability like us. What other tests should be done with other species to see if they have higher intelligence? I am excited for the future possibilities of animal research.

I liked this image from the documentary because it exemplified birds using their brains and working together to each get food.