Subject: Re: bird brains
Date: Jun 28 09:49:21 1995
From: Dennis Paulson - dpaulson at ups.edu


I trapped some starlings yesterday, for medical research, and it confirmed
without a doubt our traditional conclusion about bird brains in action. It
was a simple walk-in wire-mesh trap with a door at one end and a treadle in
the middle. The suet bait was behind the treadle, so nearer the back end
of the trap. The starlings would walk back and forth around the back end
of the trap, trying to "figure out" how to get to the suet, which was close
to them, and almost never going around to the front to check accessibility
from that direction. It seemed that only if by accident they went by the
front of the trap would they realize there was a gaping hole there that
allowed access to the suet!

This is a classic case of the no-brain bird approach to "problem-solving."
And I've always thought that starlings were reasonably intelligent as birds
go.

Dennis Paulson, Director phone: (206) 756-3798
Slater Museum of Natural History fax: (206) 756-3352
University of Puget Sound e-mail: dpaulson at ups.edu
Tacoma, WA 98416