The Emu – Green Eggs, But No Ham

20 March  2014

Emu

Africa has its ostrich, and America has its, lesser known, rhea.  But Australia has its emu.  On first sight, this large, grey-brown bird is unmistakably the close relative of both the ostrich and rhea.  However, the emu is the “character” of the family — the odd one in this not so typical family of birds.

Emu: the whole bird

Like its cousins, the emu is a flightless bird.  And, also, like it cousins, it’s fast.  So, even if it can’t fly, it can run faster than any other animal in Australia.  At 31 miles per hour, the emu ranks as the second fasted bird on earth — second only to its African cousin, the ostrich.  At a height reaching up to a bit over six-and-a-half feet and weighing as much as 130 pounds, the emu enjoys the distinction of being the largest bird in Australia.  But, again, in terms of size, the emu is only the second largest bird in the world.  The largest? 

You guessed it.  Cousin Ostrich.

Although sharing the ostrich’s unmistakable form and profile, in terms of appearance, the emu is not only smaller than its African cousin, but has brown colored plumage –  just a touch drabber than the grey-brown feathers of its other cousin, the Rhea.  Maybe to make up for its drab feathers, nature has favored the emu with a blue neck.   This relatively bright “collar” give the bird a bit of color while allowing it to conceal itself by lowering its head and neck for purposes of camouflage.

Camouflage?  This bird is over 6 feet tall.  Who’s going to mess with it?  Actually, the emu has predators in the wild, unpopulated “Outback” of Australia.   Both eagles and hawks attack emus from the air.   But there’s a catch.  The emus that are grabbed and carried off by eagles and hawks are young birds that have not yet reached their adult height and weight.

Could a flying bird carry off a full grown emu?  Well, even in the Out-est of the Outback, there are no birds that big.  The young victims have few defenses beyond their speed and a peculiar swerving run they share with Cousin Rhea.  At times, Emus extend their relatively small wings to keep their balance as the run in an evasive swerving pattern.

Dingos, a member of the grey wolf family, are the only predator of the full grown bird.  Even if emu’s lose some fights for survival with this free ranging dog of the Outback, the emu brings a serious weapon to the fight – its feet.

Like Cousin Rhea, the emu has 3 toes on its clawed feet.  This is unusual for birds, which often have a fourth “opposing” toe used to grip branches and other natural perches.   Three toe, tridactyl, clawed feet are found in birds that, like the emu, walk and run on flat ground instead of flying.  And the emu has really big, mean clawed feet.  

Mean?  Yes, mean.  Emus have been known to use their feet to rip through wire fences.  You really don’t want to get these birds angry or get in their way when they’re going somewhere.

[image]

And emus like to get where they’re going.  Not favoring flocks, these birds often travel in pairs.  They run at high speed and are unruffled by water.  When a body of water comes between an emu and where it wants to go, it just jumps in and swims.

When these birds aren’t running or swimming, they pause to feed on a variety of insects and plants.  They have excellent eye-sight.  When they’re not eating, they like to groom or “preen” their “plumage” or look around and “investigate.”

Noted for their curiosity, emus will approach humans – especially if they see movement or a colorful piece of clothing.  These birds have been known to follow and watch humans in the wild.  And, once you attract an emu’s attention, it might not be so easy to give an interested bird “the slip.”   Hoping that an emu will go away if you “just ignore it” doesn’t always work.   And, be warned: emus seem to have a sense of humor.  They have been known to approach humans and other animals and poke them with their beak and, then, run away.  Observers have the impression that this is a kind of “game” for the large bird.

The emu’s “call” is not like a bird’s call at all.  The emu makes a loud drumming or thumping sound.  That’s all.  And . . .  did I say it was loud?  It can be heard a little over a mile away.  The emu’s call enjoyed its 15 minutes of fame on the animated television series, King of the Hill .   In one episode, (Season 6, Episode 17, “Fun with Jane and Jane”), the emus “sing” the theme song with the closing credits.  Of course, there’s no music involved.  The animated birds simply intone a series of loud thumps in lieu of the regular theme.

Although there is no recognizable difference in appearance that distinguishes the male from the female.   But emus generally roam in pairs.  The pair consists of one male and one female.  But this pairing ends, more or less, with mating season.  Wait . . . the male-female pairing ends with mating season?  Yes.  It’s strange.  But that’s only the beginning of the strangeness.

Emus don’t abandon the male-female stereotypes in mating.  They reverse them.

During mating season, the females become aggressive and begin to court the relatively passive males.  A female will circle around the potential male mate drawing closer and closer.  If another passing female develops an attraction for the same male, it may, and often does, start a fight.  During mating season, fights among females are common with a single fight sometimes lasting for hours.

After mating, the male builds its nest.  And it is the male’s nest.  The female will lay eggs in the nest, but not sit on the eggs.  The male cares completely for eggs, and will lose about a third of his body-weight because of its inability to leave the nest and obtain food.   After laying her eggs, the mating female will often seek out another male, mating with as many males as possible during the mating season.

The emu’s eggs are . . . interesting . . . because they are large: over 5 inches long and weighing as much as 2 pounds.  Also, they are green.  When freshly laid, the emu’s eggs are a light green.  You might ask, “Then, they turn white, right?”  No, they don’t.  They get greener and greener until they reach the shade of an avocado.

[image]

The eggs hatch about 56 days after they are laid.  The newly hatched chicks weigh a little over a pound and are about 5 inches tall.  They can leave the nest within days, but will stay with their defending father for about 6 or 7 months learning how to find food and reaching their full adult size.  However, the young can spend as long as a year in this family circle before taking off on their own.  An emu can live as long as 20 years.

[image]

Emus are raised for meat in Australia, the United States, Peru, and China. The USDA classifies emu as red, poultry meat.  Emu skin is used to produce a distinctive type of leather.  Oil from emu fat is used for cosmetics and dietary supplements.  Although emu oil has a long history of use as an anti-inflammatory, therapeutic product, the US FDA has classified emu oil as an “unapproved drug.”

The emu is prized as a cultural icon in Australia appearing with the red kangaroo on theCoat of arms of Australia and the Australian 50 cent coin.   The bird has been featured on a number of Australian postage stamps and is the namesake of mountains, lakes, towns and even a brand of beer.

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The Ostrich – the Biggest and the Fastest

20 March 2014

Australia has its emu, and America has its rhea. You only have to look at an emu or rhea to recognize these large birds as the cousins of the familiar ostrich.  And Africa’s ostrich is the biggest and the fastest.

[Ostrich image]

The common ostrich is the biggest bird on earth growing as tall as 9 feet and weighing up to 240 pounds.  Faster than either of its cousins, ostriches have been clocked at 43 mph.  At that speed, the ostrich isn’t just the fastest bird on earth; it’s the fastest of any land animal on the planet.  Perhaps, speed compensates for flight.  Like the other members of its intercontinental family, the ostrich is a flightless bird.

[Ostrich video]

The ostrich has flashier feathers than either of its cousins.  Adult male ostriches are black with a white wing tips and white tail feathers.  Females and young males have grayish-brown feathers – similar to those of their American cousin, the rhea.  The head and neck of the ostrich . . . well, . . . it looks like the bird is going bald — with only a sparse cover of “down.”   But, instead of a comb-over, the ostrich’s thin hair stands straight up.  It looks like it had a crew cut and, then, let it grow out.

Nature has given the ostrich all it needs to keep an eye on things.   The bird’s head rises 9-feet into the air.  Its eyes are 2 inches wide — the largest eyes of any land vertebrate (land animal with a back-bone).
Ostriches spend most of their time roaming in pairs.   Sometimes, during dry spells, these large birds form flocks.  Ostriches eat plants, but will also chow-down on some insects.  You’d expect the ostrich to be a daytime-animal like most birds.   But, if you’re wandering around in the wilds of Africa, on a moonlit night, you might meet an ostrich.  The moon gives enough light to make the ostrich comfortable enough for a nocturnal prowl.

When threatened, the ostrich will lie flat on the ground to fool passers-by into thinking it is nothing more than a bump on the ground.  But there’s one old story about the ostrich that isn’t true: this bird never hides its head in the sand.  When threatened, ostriches seem to prefer to just hide – as a first line of defense.  But, when push comes to shove, these birds are more than able to defend themselves.  Ostriches use their powerful legs to kick.  And they have quite a kick.  It can be fatal.

Speaking of legs, no discussion of the ostrich would be complete without a discussion of this bird’s toes.  Yes, toes.  The ostrich’s relatives, the emu and the rhea, are both unusual birds because they have only three toes.  Most birds have four toes – three forward and one “opposing” toe.  The opposing toe is used to help the bird hang on to branches and other perches in the wild.    Of course, if you’re a bird, and you don’t fly, you don’t perch.  Flightless birds like the emu and rhea use their feet to walk and run.  To a running bird, a fourth toe would be nothing but an irritation.

It seems only logical that the ostrich should also have three toes, but it’s hard to count the number of ways in which this particular family of birds is unusual.  And, if you count the toes, you’ll find that the ostrich has only two.  Also, you’d think if you had toes, they’d be a bit alike.   Again, this family is unusual.  One toe has an enormous nail that resembles a hoof.   The other toe has no nail at all.  The best guess is that this “reduced number of toes” helps the ostrich run even faster.

[Ostrich feet]

But before we leave the subject of the ostrich’s legs, we need to say a few words about predators.  Africa is no place for any animal that can’t defend itself.  Aside from the famous “king of the jungle,” the lion, the rest of the list includes cheetahs, leopards, and hyenas as just a few of the most ferocious predators from which the ostrich has to defend itself.  Surprisingly, this bird does an amazingly good job of defending itself and can more than hold its own in the jungle.  How, does it manage?  With its legs.  The ostrich uses its legs to defend itself in two very different ways.

First, “he who fights and runs away will live to fight another day.”  The ostrich often runs away from predators.  As the fastest land animal on earth, it’s got a built-in advantage in this department.

Unfortunately, young ostriches, which haven’t grown up to their full speed, are particularly vulnerable to predators that the adult birds can easily outrun.  Sometimes, predators succeed by ambushing the ostrich – hiding and pouncing on an unsuspecting bird.  The cheetah is not as fast as an ostrich but, sometimes, is fast enough to catch an ostrich before the bird can build-up to full speed.

Second, the ostrich can use its legs to fight.  When an ostrich can’t retreat, especially when defending its nest, it will use its legs against an attacker.  With all of its running, you might get the impression that the ostrich isn’t an effective fighter.  It almost seems inaccurate to say the ostrich uses its legs to defend itself, because its legs are so often fatal to its adversary.  Maybe it’s enough to say that ostriches can, and do, kill lions with their legs.

In the wild, ostriches avoid humans as potential predators.  Maybe it’s a good thing for humans that the ostrich prefers to run away.  Ostriches in the wild, and sometime in captivity, can attack humans if these birds feel threatened.  Human deaths occur each year from massive injuries from a single kick of a leg and a single swipe of a claw.  These birds are big and tough.

Of the members of this family, the ostrich, emu, and rhea, the mating behavior of the ostrich is “about in the middle” in terms of strangeness.  Like the rhea, during mating season, a single ostrich male will mate with as few as 2 or as many as 7 females.  Although the male mates with several females, it will form a couple – a bond – with only one of the females in the group.

The strangeness of ostrich mating involves its rituals.  The male will repeat a loud, booming call while doing a kind of dance in which it flaps one wing a few times and, then, the other a few times.  The female will run in a circle around the male, while the male winds his head in a spiral motion. Disturbingly, ostriches raised entirely by humans will direct these same rituals toward their human keepers.

Females lay their eggs in a shared nest.  Ostriches lay the largest eggs of any bird at about 6 inches in length and 3 pounds in weight.  The males sit on the eggs at night and, then, the females sit on the eggs during the day.   The eggs hatch in about 40 days.  The male principally defends the hatchlings and teaches them to feed, but both the male and female raise their young together.

[Ostrich family on a walk]

The young ostriches will not reach full maturity in less than 2 years and, if they survive predators until they reach adulthood, a large number can expect to live for many more years.  Ostriches have been known to live past 60 years of age.

Ostriches have always been a focus of human fascination.  Use of their feathers for ornamentation extends back almost to the beginning of recorded history.  However, only in the 19th century did commercial ostrich farming for feathers develop.   These giant birds where tamed by capturing baby ostriches and raising them in captivity.  Ostriches, by the way, aren’t plucked, but sort of sheared.  A new crop of feathers re-grows about every 8 months.  The ostrich industry was only about feathers until the 1970’s when ostrich skin/leather and ostrich meat became profitable products.

Also, ostrich racing is catching on.  In Africa, people race ostriches while riding on the birds’ backs.  The “riding-birds” are specially fitted with saddles, reins, and bits for the purpose.  In the United States, ostrich racing began in Jacksonville, Florida, with the ostriches pulling draw-carts with human occupants.  Now, races are not only held in Florida, but also in Arizona, Nevada, and Minnesota.

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The Banana Spider – Not Quite a Tarantula?

02 April 2015

            I’ve long heard a story about a tarantula that hides in clusters of bananas.  There are even pictures of these large spiders in large bunches of bananas.  Sometimes, I think twice before reaching for a large batch of bananas in my local grocery store.

            The big surprise is that there is no such thing as a banana tarantula.  There’s really no such thing as a “banana spider” -- if you mean a specific species of spider often found in clusters of bananas.  A number of large spiders may have been taking temporary shelter or passing through when they crawled across some bananas, but there are no large spiders that have a particular attraction to the popular fruit.

            So, what’s the “banana spider” all about?

            Well, first, it’s a kind of urban legend designed to scare people like me when we try to select some bananas in the grocery store.  I know the fruit processors are careful, (gulp), but isn’t is possible . . . every once in a great while . . . for one of those giant spiders to hide among the bananas only to emerge when you are reaching for a bunch at your local grocery store!!!   Are you feeling lucky today? 

            Well, you don’t have to feel or even be lucky.  There won’t be a spider in your bananas because their really are no banana spiders.

            But there are a few spiders that may have been mistaken for a “banana spider” when they inadvertently crawled across some bunches of bananas in South American.  Someone happened to take a photo of one of these spiders lounging in or around a bunch of bananas.  Then, the photographer sent it around the world to scare anybody who’s ever shopped for bananas.

            The most likely candidate for this mistaken identity is the Brazilian Wandering Spider (Phoneutria nigriventer).  Although our Brazilian Wanderer isn’t a tarantula, no one would ever adopt this spider for its good looks.  In fact, it looks a bit scary just standing there.  And, this spider becomes even less appealing when you find out that it’s got a 4-5 inch leg span, is hairy, quite aggressive and its bite is highly poisonous to human beings. 

The Brazilian Wandering Spider

            The Brazilian wandering spider, in spite of its name, is found throughout South America and as far north and Central America’s Costa Rica.  “Wandering?”  So-called wandering spiders wander the jungle floor at night in search of food rather than maintaining a lair or building a web.  During the day, these spiders like to hide.   Sometimes, they hide under fallen logs or rocks and, occasionally, in banana plants.  Sadly, this particular spider also likes to hide in dark moist places “in or near” human dwellings!

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We're Being Watched! By the Crows!?

26 December 2013

Some people will tell you they never forget a face.  Crows don’t forget faces either.  You won’t remember their face, but they’ll remember yours . . . if, of course, you are a “person of interest” in their eyes.

Long before we started worrying about the intelligence community watching us and long before the intelligence community was even planning to start watching us, “someone” else was watching both them, us and . . . just about everything else.  They were crows.

A group of birds of the genus corvid, including crows and ravens -- agroup of flying eyes has been systematically watching us (and the rest of the world) since before the dawn or recorded history.

Just crows?

Yes, just those ever-present large black birds.  They can recognize your face in a crowd of humans and, then, remember your face, communicate what they've seen to each other, and even plan and conspire.  What are they planning?  What are they conspiring about?  We don’t know.  Actually, it’s all pretty weird when you think about it.

The FBI is working on a type of biometrics called facial recognition.  Biometrics, generally, is the computer recognition of human characteristics such as voice, gate and facial features.  But crows were doing when the Egyptians were building the pyramids.

The crows’ ability to recognize and remember faces remained unproven until John M. Marzluff, a wildlife biologist at the University of Washington, decided to test the crows’ facial recognition abilities.    
Why ?   
After 20 years of working with these birds, which included capturing and tagging, it seemed that particular birds were “wary” of particular scientists and tried harder to avoid capture.  He had long wondered whether the birds could identify particular researchers.  Although the attempts to evade capture were little more than a minor annoyance, he decided it was worth a test.

Marzluff performed the test on the University’s Seattle campus.  He used Halloween-type masks, which were worn by researchers when they captured, tagged and released seven crows.  The birds certainly didn’t enjoy the capture and tagging.  The question: Would the birds remember the features of the masks worn by the taggers?

Later, two groups of volunteers strolled through the campus, one group wearing the same masks worn by the taggers and another group of wearing the same type of mask, but one with different features.  Did the crows remember?  Oh, did they.  While the volunteers wearing the different masks were ignored, those wearing the taggers’ mask were, first, yelled at.  The crows squawked and “scolded” the wearers of the offensive masks with obviously hostile calls.  However, as if to dispel all doubt about their displeasure, the crows dive-bombed a few of the volunteers but, again, only those wearing the offensive masks.

Let it be known that crows are not only vocal birds, but quite aggressive.  As David Dietle put in his excellent article on the amazing abilities of these birds -- crows “hold a grudge.”  If you read Dietle’s full article you’ll realize that if you are on a crow’s bad side, . . . well . . . you may have something to worry about.

But Marzluff’s test revealed a few things no one expected.  When volunteers wore multiple types of masks and strolled through campus, in a group, the wearers of the taggers’ masks were singled out for scolding and dive-bombing by crows.  Problem: the aggressive crows were not among the original seven that had been captured and tagged.

So, how did the other crows find out about the faces of the taggers?  Well, apparently, not by imitating or joining in the attack after the original seven began the festivities.  As amazing as it sounds, it’s likely that the attackers “heard’ about the facial features of their victims from the original seven.  Crow behavior implicates an amazing system of vocal communication that has never been well researched and is not well understood.

Apparently, crow calls are extremely diverse and demonstrate clear regional variation.  As David Dietle explains it, these birds have “dialects” – something almost inseparable from language.  Some crow calls have been interpreted to mean certain things in certain contexts, but sufficient studies have never been done to determine the extent of crow language.  Therefore, it’s impossible to estimate the degree of articulate communication between and among crows

Crows have unusually large brains for their body size.  In fact, these birds have unusually large brains — period.  The size the crow brain is about the same as that of a chimpanzee.  Nathan Emery and Nicola Clayton, from the departments of animal behavior and experimental psychology at Cambridge University in England, have recently published a study in Science discussing evidence suggesting that the crow and its fellow corvids may have cognitive abilities that match those of chimpanzees and gorillas.

So, can crows not only remember your face, but describe your appearance to other crows.   Describe you in such detail that these others will recognize you on sight?  Well, there’s a high probability that this amazing suggestion is true.  By the way, when the Seattle experiment was repeated with more normal-looking masks, the birds performed just as “well.”

The reader may be thinking, “If I offend a crow, maybe I can ‘lay low’ until all the crows, alive now, are dead.”  Sorry, that plan won’t work.  In the Seattle test, subsequent generations of crows, birds that had never seen the offending masks, recognized them and attacked the wearers in the complete absence of the original seven birds that had been tagged.  I don’t know about you, but this makes me just a bit nervous . . . , and I feed wild birds regularly.

In fact, certainly crows could give any elephant a run for the money when it comes to “never forgetting.”  There are numerous documented reports of whole flocks of crows avoiding homes, locations, even communities in which even a single crow has been killed.  It’s hard to believe that literally thousands of birds, for generations, would avoid a specific location on account of single death of one of their own, but they apparently do.

In evaluating these reports, David Dietle made an interesting observation.  If you mess with a crow, thousands of crows will remember your address for generations.  In other words, as many as a few hundred thousand crows will “know where you live.”

I can imagine some readers thinking, “Yes, crows do remember.”  “But if they don’t like me, they’ll just scold me and dive at me.”  “I can deal with that.”  And you’re probably right.  However, you should know some of the things crows can do – if they want to.

Consider a certain group of crows that loved nuts, but couldn’t crack the shells themselves.  These birds took the nuts to an intersection with a traffic light.  Spreading the uncracked nuts on the road, they waited until cars ran over the nuts and cracked the shells.  However, the crows didn’t fly out after each nut as it was cracked.  They waited and watched the traffic light.  When the light displayed a signal that would stop traffic, the birds flew into the road and retrieved the nuts.  Then, took them to a safe location and ate their meal at their leisure.

Imagine what crows could do to their enemies if they really wanted to.  These birds are intelligent planners and communicators.  Also, they hold grudges and have long memories.  Oh, I forgot to add that these birds, also, display great ingenuity.  And they are very, very patient.  Nervous yet?

As I said, I feed wild birds regularly.  I used to do this out of an affection for wildlife.  But now, I look at these feedings as something more like payments of “protection money.”

About the Author

A “must read”:

David Dietle, “6 Terrifying Ways Crows Are Way Smarter Than You Think”

What Do the Birds Think?

3 October 2013 

While observing western scrub jays in the wild, UC Davis researchers were surprised to witness what appeared to be a bird funeral.  When a dead jay was spotted on the ground, another jay immediately began shouting out alarm calls to the other members of the flock.  This seemed to make sense.  If the discovery of a dead bird was interpreted as danger, the first bird “on the scene” might call out an alarm to the rest of the flock to warn them that a jay-killing predator was in the area.

However, what happened next was puzzling.  Instead of fleeing, the first bird landed beside the dead bird’s body while continuing its call.  The rest of the birds joined the calling jay with the whole flock gathering until they formed a circle around the body of the dead jay.

This seemed odd.  If a dead bird meant a predator was in the area, you’d expect the rest of the flock to retreat.  Instead, the flock gathered at the very location of the possible attack.  Stranger still, the surviving jays stopped foraging for food for the rest of the day.  The observers had to ask: Is this a funeral?  Is fasting for the remainder of the day a kind of mourning?  It sort of looked that way.

The researchers were so intrigued that they experimented by placing other objects in the area of the flock to observe the reaction.  Colored pieces of wood were ignored.  A stuffed jay was mobbed receiving the same treatment as a competitor from another flock.  More interesting was the reaction to a stuffed Great Horn Owl, the jay’s chief predator.  With the sighting of the owl, the birds made alarm calls and the flock gathered together — just as they had for the “funeral.”  However, once gathered together, the group attacked the stuffed owl, more or less, swooping down on it repeatedly.

So, perhaps the gathering wasn’t a funeral, but massing for a possible attack.  It may be that jays don’t flee or hide from predators.  Rather they locate the threat, call their numbers together, and counterattack.  But, that still leaves one question unanswered.  After the flock found the dead jay, why did they stop eating for the rest of the day?

The researchers admit that they don’t know what this behavior means.  All they can say is that “the jays see the presence of a dead bird as information to be publicly shared, just as they do the presence of a predator.”
Whether you call it animal intelligence, thought, self-awareness, or consciousness, the question is:  How do you know if an animal has “it.”

Forgive me for saying that the philosophical approach to the question seems the least enlightening.  Frankly, whenever philosophers define animal consciousness, their definition requires the animal to have an advanced degree in philosophy to make the cut.  I’m joking — but only a little.

My first encounter with the formal theory of animal intelligence came after I unexpectedly came into possession of two guinea pigs.  When I read up on the animals, I was shocked to discover that experts agreed that a guinea pig could never learn to recognize its own name.  I was surprised because my pigs, apparently, did know their own names.  At least, when I said one of their names, that particular pig’s nose would immediately poke up into the air, and I would get a direct look.  The other pig — the one I hadn’t called by name — would go about its business without any response.

A few months later, at a social gathering, I had an opportunity to speak to a credentialed “expert” on the philosophical theories of animal intelligence. When I described my pigs’ behavior and their, apparent, ability to recognize their own names, my expert laughed, condescendingly, at my “understandable,” but “naïve,” assumptions.

He explained what was “really” happening.  Each pig had developed a sort of conditioned reflex specifically to the sound of its spoken name.  Based on repeated experiences, each animal came to associate a particular sound with certain events.  When I spoke a pig’s name, that animal had become conditioned to expect me to pick it up, pet it, feed it, remove it from its pen, etc.  Of course, if my tone was harsh, the animal had become conditioned to stop whatever it was doing and put its head down — out of sight.

I was confused by this explanation because, as far as I could tell, this expert had just described “name recognition,” human or animal, to a tee.  Sensing my confusion, my expert quickly disabused me of my false notion.  In order to understand one’s name, I was told, one had a to have the conceptual ability to understand, not only abstraction but, the process of abstracting.  In other words, the animal would have to understand that the sound of a particular word was an abstract formulation intended to represent the animal, itself, as it existed within, though distinct from, its environment.

He continued with his explanation for a while.  Then, excusing myself to get refreshments, I avoided him for the rest of the evening.

Inspired by this experience, I hope the reader will forgive me if I avoid any further philosophical discussion of animal intelligence, and take a more visceral approach to the question of what the birds might be thinking.
Let’s begin with the mirror test.  If you check out a pet shop, you’ll find that small mirrors are sold as amusement devices for caged birds.  I used to think that a mirror might fool a bird into thinking it had a companion.  This may work with some birds, but not with others.

What can a mirror tell us about self-awareness?  The test is surprisingly easy.  What would you do if you passed a mirror and saw a dark smudge on your face?  You’d wipe it off.  Well, researcher Gordon G. Gallup marked the skin, hair, or feathers of an animal with a mark that couldn’t be directly seen, at least, not without looking in a mirror.

Then, the animal is observed as it observes its own reflection in a mirror.  If the animal begins grooming behavior directed at the mark — tries to remove it — this means that the animal is aware of itself.  In other words, the animal knows it’s looking at itself in the mirror and recognizes the image as its own reflection, rather than, another animal.

Chimpanzees, orangutans, pygmy chimpanzees, and gorillas, dolphins, elephants and, among birds, magpies pass this test.  Magpies were chosen for study because researchers already suspected that these birds might be self-aware.  Their suspicions were based on the magpie’s lifestyle and apparent displays of empathetic behavior, which is thought to be a precursor to self-awareness.

The mirror test has come under criticism, not because it’s not rigorous enough, but because of its anthropocentric bias: over-emphasis on vision as a criterion for self-awareness.  So, if the mirror only tests animals with a sharp eye, what about animal speech.

Researchers have listened to the speech (and sounds) of young children and infants in their cribs hoping to learn their thoughts and levels of consciousness.  This method of study is being adapted for the study of animal speech.  Some researchers propose that by passively listening to an animal’s voluntary speech, it is possible to learn about its thoughts and determine whether the animal is conscious.  These studies have tended to focus on one species of bird, the loquacious Macaw.  However, I’ve heard no word on the progress made by those scientists attempting to learn the Macaw language.

Another proposed criterion of self- awareness is suffering.  However, there is no agreement on the answers to two basic questions.  What is suffering?  — and — Does suffering demonstrate consciousness?  Until researchers can agree on the answers, there’s no “yard stick” with which to measure results.

So, research based on “suffering” provides speculative conclusions.  Some scientists believe that even plants have consciousness.  One researcher draws the line between shrimp and oysters.  Apparently, shrimp know what’s going on, but oysters are permanently out of the consciousness loop. Another researcher has gone so far as to speak of “the inner life of cockroaches.”

Using suffering as a test for consciousness is a problem because suffering is easily confused with the more universal experience of pain, which can be experienced without self-awareness.

On the other hand, the over-estimation of animal self-awareness is, perhaps, a reaction against the “official truth” of the past.  Until recently, scientific opinion confirmed that all animals were biological robots thoughtlessly moving through their daily activities.

When we think of consciousness, let’s start with the “gold standard.”  We humans haven’t lost our place at the top.  The sheer extent of human consciousness is unparalleled in the rest of the animal kingdom.  Even if some animals are “more conscious” than we thought, none can hold a candle to human beings when it comes to consciousness.  So much so, that the degree of human self-awareness is one of the primary characteristics that differentiate our species from every other species on earth.

So, when looking for consciousness in animals, we would expect other anthropoids, chimps, orangutans, or gorillas, to be the likely candidates.  But, there are, also, several bird species registering at the high end on “the consciousness meter.”  And, the self-awareness of birds is as interesting as it is unexpected.  You’d have go back almost 300 million years to find a common ancestor of both mammals and birds.  And during the last 300 million years, mammals and birds have developed very different types of brains.

The mammalian neocortex was once thought to be the neurological structure that was absolutely necessary to consciousness.  However, birds don’t have a neocortex.  So, based on our current understanding of brain structure, birds shouldn’t be conscious at all.  However, our fine feathered friends go right on demonstrating high levels of consciousness.

Researcher Irene Pepperberg has worked with captive African Gray Parrots.  One of the birds, Alex, has scientifically demonstrated the ability to associate a few human words with meaning.  These birds have also demonstrated the ability to work intelligently with abstract concepts of shape, color, and number.
According to Pepperberg and others, African Gray Parrots compare favorably in the performance of cognitive tasks with dolphins, chimpanzees and, even, human toddlers.

Of course, those who spend a lot of time with animals, or even one animal, have known for centuries that animals possess a degree of conscious self-awareness.

In 2012, at the The Francis Crick Memorial Conference, in Cambridge England, a number of scientists presented evidence that lead to The Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness confirming that “Humans are not the only conscious beings; other animals, specifically mammals and birds, are indeed conscious, too.”
Dr. Marc Bekoff commented on the Declaration in an article most appropriately titled, “Scientists Finally Conclude Nonhuman Animals Are Conscious Beings.  Didn’t we already know this?  Yes, we did.”  I particularly appreciated the article’s reemphasis of the obvious with the comment, “It’s difficult to believe that those who have shared their homes with companion animals didn’t already know this.”

I’ve heard it said that Sir Isaac Newton “discovered” gravity — complete with the story of an apple falling down out of a tree.  However, Newton didn’t discover gravity.  Everyone already knew that objects fall down and not up.  Rather, Newton discovered a reliable scientific description of the laws of gravity.
Just as everyone knew about gravity before Newton, so most of us knew animals were conscious long before the Cambridge Declaration.  However, the Declaration is a landmark moment.  It affirms that the weight of formal scientific evidence has established that certain animals are conscious.

To most of us, the discussion of animal consciousness, self-awareness, and intelligence is both interesting and entertaining.  But the Cambridge Declaration isn’t just a decorative bow on top of a package of research findings.  The Declaration has potential ethical implications regarding the treatment of animals.  Specifically, the use and treatment of animals in scientific experimentation and animal husbandry must, now, be reviewed and evaluated in light of the scientific determination that certain animals are conscious.

But, even with the results of all this research, it’s still difficult to know exactly what’s going on in an animal’s head.  Some animals take notice of their dead.  Giraffes and elephants, for example, have been observed lingering near the body of a “recently deceased close relative.”  This suggests that animals may have a mental concept of death.  They may mourn the passing of those “close to them.”  But the question remains: What do the birds think?  Do jays hold funerals for their dead?

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See also:

[12/26/13] Crows – Organic Arial Surveillance Vehicles.

Also of Interest:

SoundEagle in Debating Animal Artistry and Musicality