talking to birds

Since meeting Maggie Magpie and being introduced by him to magpie families and to many other species of birds, Gitie and I have become increasingly and profoundly impressed by their high intelligence and, yes, wisdom.

Maggie Magpie

I find it sad that scientists often automatically assume that only humans "think" or are "conscious". I have never quite worked out what they mean by that, because it doesn't take much looking to see intelligence in a great many other animals. Ask a cat owner!

The way contemporary animal behaviour scientists see the world is, in my opinion, profoundly unscientific. Their reasoning seems to go like this: animals do not think, they merely respond to instincts; they don't have feelings, they just react as their instinctive programming determines; humans, on the other hand, have a qualitatively different kind of intelligence and language and can construct uniquely 'human' realities like love, loyalty, and ethics, and can invent institutions like property ownership and inheritance.

Yesterday Gitie and I went to see how Vicky and Bertie are doing this year on the nesting front. Although Vicky's nest is in line with our breakfast room, it is distant and we have not been able to set up the telescope this year. So imagine our delight when we found Vicky sitting proudly on the nest. The nest is in a tricky spot, so Gitie stayed by the road while I went through the paddock to the nesting tree. This is the tree that Vicky and Maggie purchased from a crow some years ago, giving the crow their old tree and nest in return, as well as rights to get food from their human friends (us) for a year). The crow made Vicky's old nest bigger and stronger, while Vicky lined the crow's nest with lots of soft material.

The first time a bird sees a camera, he/she may feel a bit unsure of the big thing we place next to our eyes that also makes a clicking sound.  But in no time at all, they realise that the sound poses no danger to them. Once they become comfortable with the sound, they feel quite amused by our fondness for pointing this object towards them.

We use a Cannon S5 with a 1.5 teleconverter lens which is a reasonable sized equipment. To the bird it looks like we have added a big round black giant sized eye to our eye.

The birds have no idea what the camera really does for us, but that doesn't stop them from appreciating many things about it, in their classic style of observing our actions.

Wild Birds love communicating with each other, with birds from other species, with other animals and they absolutely love talking to humans.  They may fly off in a flurry at the very start because they may not be sure of your intentions, or they may befeeling particularly shy or self-conscious.  But once they realise that you are sincerely interested in them, they begin to respond and take an interest in you.

Once one bird gets the idea and starts