Douglas F. Daily
ddaily at u.washington.edu
Seattle WA 98195
On Thu, 12 Aug 1999, Mary Manson wrote:
> >Do birds laugh?
> >Douglas F. Daily
> Persons who deal with African Grey parrots claim that they have seen some
> very "human" characteristics in this species - I can't remember if
> laughter was one of them, but amusement in the birds at the researcher's
> antics seemed to be.

I have a friend who is not a birder but got to watching crows in his
backyard. He had some who would pick up walnuts and drop them
from a height to crack them.

He started experimenting by glueing fishline onto the walnut
and placing the walnut on the ground so the crows couldn't see
the fishline. They would not touch the 'fixed' walnut.

After talking with him, he realized that he had to do the
glueing out of sight of the birds, maybe that's how they knew.

Yet, when he put them out, with unattached walnuts beside, they
could tell. Visually he says, no way. Smell, can crows
smell enough to tell?

Anyway, he's quite convinced they had a gleam in their eyes.
beaks can't smile, but eyes can.