Birdy communion - I feel young again. :D

Strange thing happened today, had to note it down before I forgot it.

Had to make a quick day trip at work to City Hall to pick up two big boxes of service directories. Picked them up and drove bak, parking in the back lot behind our office. While unpacking the boxes from my trunk, noticed a big magpie in front of the office door munching on something. Paid it no mind really, and unloaded the first box, taking it into the office and placing it down on the wheelchair lift atop the stairs. Went back out, and while I was getting the second box, the bird had hopped up to the roof over our heads and was poking at the loosened plaster on the building edge (It had been torn some last week while workers were replacing our roof AC units), he was chattering away calmly as I brought the second box into the office and placed it on top of the first. (thrilling story so far, isn't it?)

Well, finally, went back to the car and closed the trunk. During that time it'd flown down to perch on a piece of wood protruding from the recycling bin about 6 feet from the door. It was pretty talkative at this point, and as I got to the door I just randomly tried mimicing some of the sounds it made.

Just a moment later and he flew to my shoulder, just like that. Sat there for a moment (could have been a good ten seconds, felt like forever), looked around, and then hopped off to the roof again, peered over the edge, and then walks out onto the roof (and out of sight)

After years of having a raven (I had named him Charlie) hanging around my old house I'd managed to coax *that* bird into visiting every so often. But this was an (assumedly not quite wild?) bird I'd not seen before, I don't know. But he certainly seemed friendly.

It felt cool, all over again, even after Charlie.

Oh yeah, he didn't crap on me. Though he had dirty feet. Wish I'd had a camera to get a pic of the dusty tracks he left on me.

..... And people wonder why I think birds are cool.

Birds are cool

I did one of those hold an owl and a falcon things a while ago.. they were so heavy!

This usually happens right before they peck your eyes out.

Cool story Psyra! Birds are extraordinarily smarter than we give them credit for, particularly parrots, crows and ravens. I have seen them do some amazing things.

Mostly, I think that our failing as humans is that we have just never made a conserted effort to learn how to communicate with animals. Then again, if we did, and confirmed that they were thinking, sentinent beings - then we would surley have to reconsider how we treat them.

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I absolutely love birds. They are best with an apricot glaze sauce n a side of smashed tatters.

Just got back from work, and he was stll hanging around. I got out of my car and he flew down to the base of the back office door and started snooping around the dooframe.

I told him "Sorry, only office employees are allowed to use that door" and he looked rather dejected and flew off to a tree across the lot. Well, I *think* he looked dejected. :>

Shoulda been a Crow (see my signature )

At first glance I thought this thread was titled "Birdy communion - I feel young asian."

Clearly I am getting too much spam email.

Thank you for writing this down here, Psyra.

http://users.ox.ac.uk/~kgroup/tools/tools_main.shtml


The first "animal other than a human that has shown a clear understanding of cause and effect, and fashioned a tool for a specific task using new materials not encountered in the wild."
http://archives.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/europe/08/09/crow.betty/index.html

Liked it.

At the ripe age of 29, Alex has mastered important tasks like counting to six, understanding that corn is yellow, and knowing the differences among a variety of shapes.

Call him a birdbrain if you must; he'll probably take it as a compliment. This is because Alex, an African gray parrot, is a prime example of birds' abilities to exhibit higher brain functions than humans usually give them credit for.

For the past 28 years, Alex has been under the care and tutelage of Irene Pepperberg, an adjunct associate professor of psychology at Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts. Pepperberg, who grew up with common budgerigar parakeets as company, began her work after seeing early episodes of Nova that showed language work performed with other types of animals.

Pepperberg said she decided to work with gray parrots partly because they're known for clear vocalizations that make them great talkers. She currently has three of the endangered birds as research subjects, including Alex.

"They don't have the same, 'Rawk! Polly want a cracker!' type of vocalizations," Pepperberg said. "They sound more like people."

Pepperberg and her students have taught Alex things using a technique called model/rival, which was originally developed by Dietmar Todt, a German expert in ethology, the study of animal behavior. The technique involves using a second person to demonstrate correct and incorrect behavior while Alex watches. For example, Pepperberg might give someone a piece of cork in response to them saying the word cork, but withhold it if they make any other noise.

Now, Alex can identify 50 different objects, and knows seven colors and five shapes. He understands concepts of same and different, and can even ask for certain objects that aren't physically present, Pepperberg said.

But perhaps the most intriguing thing is what Alex seems to have taught himself, which Pepperberg calls a "zero-like concept." Humans don't usually understand the concept of zero until they're several years old, and Pepperberg has never heard of a bird having a similar comprehension.

About a year ago, she was working with him on a number-comprehension study. She knew he could look at a tray of green and blue balls and blocks and tell researchers how many of the objects were blue blocks.

This "suggested it wasn't a simple associative mechanism, but we had to prove it," Pepperberg said, as he wasn't just seeing three blobs of something and counting it as three. Rather, there might be 18 items on a tray, and he'd have to separate out the green blocks and balls from blue ones.

They began giving Alex trays with various quantities of blue, orange and purple blocks. He would be asked something like, "What color three?" and would have to name the color corresponding with just three identically colored blocks on the tray.

One day, Pepperberg asked him, "What color three?"

"Five," Alex responded.

Puzzled, Pepperberg went back and forth with the bird, trying to understand why he was answering with a number instead of a color. He could have been bored -- such tasks are done over and over with Alex, and after 10 or 15 trials of an experiment he might ask for grapes, bananas or toys, or simply give wrong answers to indicate he's tired of playing along, Pepperberg said.

"OK, smarty, what color five?" Pepperberg finally asked, knowing there weren't five objects of the same color on the tray.

"None," he replied.

Alex didn't come up with the word on his own. Pepperberg said he knew it in the sense of absence from a study he'd been involved in on determining differences and similarities between objects -- but this use was unique.

To determine this use wasn't a fluke, Pepperberg mixed in questions whose answers were "none" to subsequent trials, with similar results. This initial zero-like work was published in the May 2005 issue of the Journal of Comparative Psychology, in an article co-authored by Pepperberg and a student lab employee.

More recently, Pepperberg has been testing Alex's further comprehension of this zero-like concept by conducting a study where he must sum jelly beans revealed from underneath a series of cups. For now, Alex still needs to be taught that he should say "none" if there are no beans under a cup, she said. Pepperberg expects this work will be published next February in an article on gray parrot numerical abilities in the Journal of Comparative Psychology.

But while Alex is special to Pepperberg because, as she claims, he's the first bird who can do all these different cognitive tasks, this doesn't necessarily mean he's a genius with a beak.

"He's smart, but I don't think he's particularly smart. He's just had all this (human) interaction and all this training," she said.

Alex isn't the first bird known to do more than flying, nesting and looking for food. Scrub jays appear to be able to remember particular events, and woodpecker finches are known for using tools to obtain food.

Still, Alex's intellectual prowess could show how animals with walnut-sized brains can do some of the things people can do. It also leads to looking at the capabilities of other bird species, Pepperberg said.

Alex's displayed abilities could help save endangered birds like him.

"Basically, it's easier to convince people to conserve creatures that are sentient, that are intelligent, that are more like us," Pepperberg said.

Moreover, methods used to teach Alex numbers, shapes and colors are helping teach skills like empathy to children with learning disabilities including autism and attention deficit disorder.

Diane Sherman, administrator of pediatric therapy clinic New-Found Therapies in Monterey, California, uses a modified version of Pepperberg's model/rival technique on learning-disabled children. She has successfully treated hundreds of children aged 3 to 18 over the past 14 years, she said.

The modeling techniques help these children anticipate what others will think of their actions, something notoriously difficult to pick up for those with learning disorders. It also helps them read nonverbal language, like a shrug of the shoulders or a roll of the eyes.

I know that this thread keeps trying to die... but I just keep finding more and more interesting information out about birds. Here's another example of a very smart bird:




Notice that he does not say the same thing to everyone when he tells them where to get off and also notice that he said "you TWO wankers" to the TWO policemen. That means he knew how many there were and my guess is he had some concept of what they were (probably based on his previous owners dislike of anyone in authority).

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Okay, Rose Karuna, if you happen to have any of Noramyr Gullwing's bird avvies, I'm gonna give you a free 'Nurdbird' outfit for it, just after reading all that info. :>

<-----<Hoots like an owl>

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Just don't go off to war, Psyra, we'd miss you and need to get Nicholas Cage to bring you back

I remembered that movie, and it was awesome.