1. On a bird table was placed two plastic transparent boxes. In one box was placed a piece of food, in the other box was placed a long stick, and on the bird table itself was placed a short stick. Through trial and error crows were able to figure out (using powers of deduction that most birds simply don’t have) that the short stick could be used to remove the long stick, and then the long stick could be used to remove the piece of food for consumption.
2. On a bird table was placed a cylinder half full with water, with a piece of unreachable food floating on the water; to the side of the cylinder were some stones. Crows deduced that by placing the stones into the cylinder, the water level would gradually rise until the piece of food was reachable.
Needless to say, I love crows.
But at the other end of the ornithological evolutionary scale are wood pigeons. I can only presume that these birds succeed through some kind of mass breeding programme; it certainly isn’t through intelligence. Wood pigeons can, at any given moment, commit suicide by flying full force into a window (perhaps believing it to be a tree!) or by standing still in front of a speeding vehicle. They will fight aimlessly with each other, in an ineffective and annoyingly flappy kind of way, even though there is plenty of food to go around. Needless to say, I hate wood pigeons.
If ornithology were anthropomorphised, I like to think that crows would be the kind of civilised human beings who have deduced that co-operation is more important than competition; wood pigeons would be the underclass!
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