Nevertheless, in formal settings, they prefer the term “cognition.” It is less fraught with human associations and baggage. In their more relaxed moments, biologists might use terms like “intelligence” and “smart.” It’s almost unavoidable. Now, the field of “animal cognition” has exploded. Then groundbreaking studies of parrots and corvids (crows, jays, and nutcrackers) began to change the landscape of animal thought. Photo by Charles Bergmanīirds were viewed as mindless creatures of instinct. Vladimir Pravosudov of the University of Nevada, Reno, stands with his specially designed “smart feeder” that he uses to study Mountain Chickadees. Birds’ brains are too small to be capable of thought, the thinking went, too different from the human brain to support anything like real thinking. The term “bird brain” was also a contradiction in terms. Before the 1990s, avian intelligence was considered an oxymoron. We sit on the thick layers of fallen pine needles.Ī little context helps to understand the significance of Pravosudov’s studies of Mountain Chickadees. The sun is warm and the air heavy with a pine-forest perfume. I’ve come to the Sagehen Experimental Forest in the Sierra Nevada to learn about his research on Mountain Chickadees - and even more, to take an eye-opening journey with him into the chickadee mind. When I hear a pickup truck clattering up the forest service road, I duck out of my camouflage by the nest and walk over to meet him.īut that’s exactly what I want him to do - tell chickadee stories. The Mountain Chickadees I am watching are on his study site. But in Vladimir Pravosudov, they have found an enthusiastic and clever champion. In any event, chickadees seem an unlikely place to look for high intelligence. Perhaps it’s that we have trouble thinking that minds and feathers go together. Perhaps it’s that they’re so cute and unassuming. Yet we have almost certainly underestimated chickadees, particularly when it comes to their intelligence. ![]() They possess an irresistible cheerfulness. We love the jauntiness of their flight, the lilt and lift of their song. They are favored wild companions in our daily lives, regular visitors to our feeders and our gardens. Photo by Vladimir PravosudovĬhickadees are among the most beloved birds in North America. The 9,000-acre forest is managed in a partnership between the University of California and the U.S. The snowy peaks of the Sierra Nevada mountain range in eastern California stretch out from the Sagehen Experimental Forest, the site of the chickadee research. The data might even help me understand the secrets that pass between these two courting chickadees. These unlikely chickadees may possess mental abilities that rival the skills of some of the more celebrated intellectual stars of the bird world. The research on this species of mountainous regions of western North America is part of a sea change in the interest in and study of the avian mind. It’s a clever study, using innovative, high-tech, programable “smart feeders” that enable the scientists to test memory and learning. Their nest is in a stump at a research site where biologists have uncovered startling secrets about the minds of these birds. This pair of Mountain Chickadees are nesting in the pine forest of the Sierra Nevada not far from Truckee, California. ![]() She lifts out of the cavity and bounces into the tree where he is singing. She must like what the male is saying to her.
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