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Clever greenfinch? |
27.4.2003 |
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Michael Woods |
I heard recently of a female greenfinch
that appeared to be bit brighter than we sometimes credit
birds. The intelligence of birds is usually not held in high
regard, as, for instance, when a chicken insists on trying
to go through a wire fence rather than round it. This
greenfinch had collected a beakful of dried grasses for her
nest when she spotted a sunflower seed on the ground. She
dropped the nest material, ate the seed and then laboriously
picked up all the grasses again.
Before the greenfinch could proceed on
her way, she spotted another seed, and dropped the grass
again to deal with it. Unfortunately for the neatness of the
story, the finch now completely lost interest in the nest
material and concentrated on feeding. Yet it does provide an
example of a bird remembering what it was doing and, more
interestingly, not trying to do two things at once. If it
had been really stupid, it would have tried to pick up the
seed without letting go of the nest material.
This observation of an animal showing a
glimmer of intelligence reminds me of an anecdote recounted
by Konrad Lorenz. He and his students were watching a pair
of jewelfish with a nest of babies. The male was in the
process of chewing a worm when he saw an errant baby. He
immediately took it into his mouth and found himself faced
with a dilemma: to swallow or not to swallow? The jewelfish
was transfixed for several seconds as he appeared to ponder
the problem, then he spat out the contents of his mouth. The
worm was grabbed again, chewed up and swallowed, then the
baby picked up and safely returned to the nest. Lorenz and
his students burst into applause.
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