On Wed, 28 Jun 1995, Herb Curl wrote:
> figuring out that there might be a hole in a fence? Are some bird
> *families* smarter than others: e.g., corvids vs phasianids ?

**** WARNING: uncited anectdotal data follows with no possible hope of
**** outside confirmation.

I remember talking to a WDFW fellow who was trapping and tracking Ravens
in eastern Washington. He said he had great difficulty catching an
individual Raven twice in the same type of trap - they remembered what it
was and wouldn't fall for it twice.

And on the phasianid side of things (they sure can be dumb sometimes):
A method of locating nests in the Arctic is to drag a rope between 2
observers. It bumps along the tundra and birds flush off their nest
(hopefully) before the rope bumps them. On one occasion, a co-worker and
I watched a male Willow Ptarmigan who was watching us. As we got closer,
it just stood there watching. It never moved even as the rope came
closer and finally would have been knocked over if we hadn't stopped.

-------------
Michael R. Smith
Univ. of Washington, Seattle
whimbrel at u.washington.edu
http://salmo.cqs.washington.edu/~wagap/mike.html