Birds are no feather-brains, says study by Indian scientists

They have also marvelled at the relative simplicity of the experiment. Intelligence’ was an attribute reserved strictly for the human species and it was only later — and that too rather reluctantly — that it was advanced to some other higher primates like chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans.

Watwe’s report which suggests that bee-eaters also possess a certain level of cognition is probably the first of its kind on birds.

The researchers who studied nesting behavior in wild populations of small green bee-eaters forcefully bring forth what they call suggestive evidence’ that the birds have “the ability to think about anotherindividuals’ mental states” or what is technically called having a theory of mind’.

This rather intriguing finding has been reported in the latest issue of the respected Indian Journal Current Science. Using a carefully designed observational protocol, a seemingly insignificant fact — that bee-eaters were observed to hesitate while entering their nest in the presence of a human observer — led to the far-reaching conclusion that birds also have limited cognition and intelligence.

They found that this hesitation to enter the nest was significantly reduced when the human observer was unable to see the nest, although the bird could see the observer clearly and at a comparable distance. This suggests that the birds can appreciate the visual perspective of the observer and take a decision based on the observer’s vision.

They further say that if the observer had seen the nest before in the presence of the bird, the frequency of nest visits was observed to be less than when the observer had not seen thenest, suggesting that the bird can probably differentiate what the observer knows and what it doesn’t. “Such a behaviour needs a mental capacity so far only known in humans and a few other primates,” concludes Watve.

He adds that the results have important implications for research in animal intelligence and cognitive behavior. The experimental design lays out a quantifiable framework for testing the theory of mind and geometrical perception in animals.

Applauding this novel finding is a respected animal behaviour expert, Professor Donald R Griffin of Harvard University, who thinks the results are “very interesting and significant,” for they demonstrate that birds do possess a “very simple level of thinking” — a fact that had not been demonstrated till date.