News report that wild cockatoos in Sydney have learned how to flip open trash bin lids and scavenge for food. Not only that, but they’ve been able to teach other cockatoos how to do it.
I blame social media. Yet another thing Twitter has to answer for.
The cockatoos have only recently learnt that foraging technique from the country’s #1 urban scavenger, the White Ibis, aka the Australian Bin Chicken.
Crows have been doing that for years
The intelligence of birds, at least some species of them, has always been fascinating to me. Their brains evolved along a very different path than mammals, yet their intelligence rivals animals like dolphins.
I read an article recently speculating that crows, who can solve multiple stage puzzles in order to get a food reward, may have a conscious self-awareness similar to us.
Birds are just biding their time until the
Great War with Humanity during which the prophecy foretells that birds shall pull down not only humans but their feline overlords in the bloodiest act of vengeance the world has ever known.
Will the longest-lived legacy of The Simpsons be, “I for one welcome our new xxxxxxxx overlords?”