Sitting at my desk on my new and neat glassed-in porch, I’ve watched numerous bird species—robins, cardinals, wrens, bluebirds, orioles, brown thrashers, house finches, chickadees, doves, American goldfinches, blue jays, hummers, northern flickers, and crows flying, and turkey vultures soaring overhead, all going about their business of surviving this day.  

My inventory of sightings is enriched because of my neighbor’s well-attended array of bird feeders. Also, squirrels and various bird species again made good use of the mulberry tree that almost touches the iron fence at the back edge of my yard. A Cooper’s hawk has her nest high in a tree near the easterly end of the strip of forest behind my cottage. I’ve seen her a couple of times perched near the feeders, hoping (I assume) to catch a handy meal. 

But I’m not foolish enough to think that I’m really “out in Nature” when sitting behind those double-glass windows on my porch. I can neither hear bird or squirrel sounds nor sense the smells of the woods and beasties. Yes, there was a time when I could smell squirrels, wasp nests and wild honey bee hives if I happened to be near, and downwind, to them. That sensory ability surely has saved me at least once from walking into the possibility of multiple stings. 

It is fun to watch the antics of wild critters, but we usually see only a part of the big picture of any critter’s life. Much goes unseen, unnoticed, or unappreciated because of our lack of knowledge of critter natural history. Also, the expectations of our “watching brain” may not be tuned to the level of memory and intelligence that some of the critters possess. Thus, we may miss the significance of some of their actions.

My late wife, Imogene, and I liked to go to a particular “great view” pull-off high in the mountains just 10 miles southeast of our retirement home in Taos, NM. A low wall had been built along the edge of the pull-off to keep visitors from going over the edge and down the steep wooded canyon below. We would put food on the wall for both gray and Stellar’s jays. The grays and most Stellar’s would come, put three-four nuts in their beaks, and fly off down into the deep wooded valley to deposit their new loot in their personal food cache. 

One particular Stellar’s jay usually picked up six or seven nuts, arranging them along its throat and bill in orderly fashion before sailing off down into the forest to stash his loot. But during one visit to the wall, this critter took up seven nuts. And, at about the moment of taking off, he seemed to have spied another highly desirable treat, too good to pass up. The jay then proceeded to unload, in a straight line, the seven nuts in reverse order from which they had been picked up. He picked up the goody nut in question, then proceeded to again pick up the seven original nuts, in precisely the same order as picked up before! The jay then flew off down into the forest in its usual direction. 

Jays are members of the bird family Covidae that also includes crows, ravens, magpies, rooks, jackdaws, and others—all known for their intelligence. I want to mention some recent experiments that tested crow intelligence and memory, some examples of avian “thoughts” and actions we rarely see, or even know to exist—and probably would never sense while watching from my front porch.

Dr. John Marzluff, University of Washington, has studied crow intelligence for more than 20 years. He learned early that crows can recognize faces. His team had captured crows, tagged them, and released them back into their environment.  Members of the team wore different masks, and crows would dive-bomb and scold those (but only those) wearing masks that had been worn by those who had messed with the crows before. 

If you think two crows watching you and cawing to each other are talking about you, you’re probably right. Crows, in some way, talk to other crows about what has happened to them. Even crows that never were captured attacked the “scientist” masks. And they pass on their grudge to their offspring—and that message is carried even to subsequent generations, who also harassed those wearing the same masks! Crow communication is poorly understood, but the intensity, rhythm, and duration of caws seem to form the basis of a possible language. 

Crows have been observed placing nuts on a road, waiting for a vehicle to crush them, then flying out to pick up the nut meats. A pair was once seen mastering a water fountain. One would push down the water flow button while the other waited to drink. They took turns.

And they make tools; some primates and a few other birds do this. And at least one bird species (the name escapes me) has been observed altering a twig slightly to improve its function. But crows have been observed bending a piece of wire to make a hook for fishing grubs out of a cavity in a tree. When given a twig for this job, they won’t even try to bend it!

Space limitations prevent me from citing other studies on Covidae intelligence and memory. It is an active field of study, and we can expect many more exciting discoveries concerning what this group of birds can do. Researchers in that field generally accord to the Covidae a level of intelligence comparable to monkeys, and some say the level of the great apes. The label “bird brain” may soon become more of a compliment than a cerebral slur.