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A girl who gets gifts from birds

bbc.com

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Re: A girl who gets gifts from birds

#121

Post by rickdale »

Luc wrote: post #42
maxerickson wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More here: http://www.pbs.org/lifeofbirds/brain/ The particular bird matching that number, Clark's Nutcracker, looks well studied. This paper discusses them caching 30,000 seeds, but not in 30,000 separate locations, it concludes that they locate at least 1,000 locations by memory: http://www.auburn.edu/academic/classes/biol/7560/folkerts/hu... (that author seems to have done much field work studying the bird) Anothe…

The paper you linked to mentions them caching seeds in all manner of different locations. I wonder if they have some form of algorithm unknown to us to determine a good location, rather than choosing randomly. That would aid a lot in 'remembering' locations of the caches.

On that same program the showed an experiment with 2 crows in side by side cages. When the crows could see each other, they put the food in the soil without making any noise. When they blocked the view of the other bird they put the food into the rocks, which makes quite a bit of noise. So theres more going into where they hide their food then first glance.

Re: A girl who gets gifts from birds

#122

Post by bshanks »

Udo wrote: post #45

Whenever someone asserts that mammalian-equivalent intelligence is incredibly unlikely to arise twice, I like to point towards very intelligent and social birds, like crows - who are capable of performing advanced mental feats without a neocortex .

Tangentially, there is recent discussion of the idea that the neocortex is homologous to structures that do exist in the avian forebrain, eg that mammalian neocortex vs avian forebrain is almost the same processing units, wired with almost the same way connectivity, but just with a slightly different spatial organization:

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960982212... Harvey J. Karten. Neocortical Evolution: Neuronal Circuits Arise Independently of Lamination.

Some evidence is that some genes which correlate with cortical layers in mammals show up in these other places in avians.

Re: A girl who gets gifts from birds

#123

Post by TeMPOraL »

You know what? After spending hours reading comments here, then watching videos and a talk about crows, it's decided. Screw drones. I don't want a quadcopter. I want to befriend a few crows and see if I can convince some to do cool stuff.

Re: A girl who gets gifts from birds

#124

Post by sounds »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #123

You know what? After spending hours reading comments here, then watching videos and a talk about crows, it's decided. Screw drones. I don't want a quadcopter. I want to befriend a few crows and see if I can convince some to do cool stuff.

As someone who has worked a LOT with drones of all form factors (quad copters, propeller drones, battery and dead dinosaur-fueled), when drones can do this, drones will be cool:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eakKfY5aHmY

Context:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passenger_pigeon#Ecology_and_be...

Re: A girl who gets gifts from birds

#125

Post by fheisler »

comrade1 wrote: post #111
tomswartz07 wrote: post #17

There's an old 4Chan thread where a user starts 'World War Crow' by favoring a certain group of crows over another. Allegedly, after some time, the two groups of crows have an all out battle over which group gets french fries. http://usvsth3m.com/post/69700674556/has-an-anonymous-4chan-...

What!? That's not the end though. There was a second part where the crow factions fight. I hope someone saved it!

http://i.imgur.com/o30vTqq.png

Re: A girl who gets gifts from birds

#126

Post by TeMPOraL »

sounds wrote: post #124
TeMPOraL wrote: post #123

You know what? After spending hours reading comments here, then watching videos and a talk about crows, it's decided. Screw drones. I don't want a quadcopter. I want to befriend a few crows and see if I can convince some to do cool stuff.

As someone who has worked a LOT with drones of all form factors (quad copters, propeller drones, battery and dead dinosaur-fueled), when drones can do this, drones will be cool: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eakKfY5aHmY Context: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passenger_pigeon#Ecology_and_be...

I remember that video. It was featured in a TED talk I very like [0]. Murmuration is one of the most amazing things I ever saw on YouTube. Thanks for reminding me of it.

[0] - http://www.ted.com/talks/don_tapscott_four_principles_for_th...

Re: A girl who gets gifts from birds

#127

Post by aaron695 »

aaron695 wrote: post #116
Varcht wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I blame this on the "DreamWorks Effect", animators have done such a good job giving animals human traits and emotions that millinials+ really can't help but be animists.

It is funny that the OP, with a good point, gives an example of exactly why people are stupid and anthropomorphize animals, sure that crow is skiing..... Which is a shame since the opposite is also true, animals can have emotions and intelligence. Just it's doesn't necessarily look the same as humans characteristics. "DreamWorks Effect" millinials+ sorry but I don't think you could be more wrong. Disney has being doi…

[edit] Science -http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/thoughtful-animal/2012/0...

Re: A girl who gets gifts from birds

#128

Post by sk5t »

zzalpha wrote: post #118
balabaster wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This one's my favourite: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUiGEDnf5e4 Crow keeps undoing the guys shoe laces so he can steal the frying pan while the guy's doing his shoe laces up. Classic.

To be fair, that's pretty basic reinforcement learning. The other video, on the other hand, shows adaptation of existing knowledge to solve a problem, along with multi-step planning, which is really incredible!

Only if the crow had significant experience with untying shoes as an opportunity to swipe something interesting... bit of a long shot, no?

Re: A girl who gets gifts from birds

#129

Post by zzalpha »

sk5t wrote: post #128
zzalpha wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, that's pretty basic reinforcement learning. The other video, on the other hand, shows adaptation of existing knowledge to solve a problem, along with multi-step planning, which is really incredible!

Only if the crow had significant experience with untying shoes as an opportunity to swipe something interesting... bit of a long shot, no?

You're over thinking it.

On its own shoelaces are interesting. Pulling on the loose end may have started as curiosity.

The person then puts the pan down to tie them. Crow grabs the lace again because, again, curious and playful (birds can be incredibly mischievous), and once again the pan reappears!

Now we're in reinforcement territory.

Now don't get me wrong, the crow learns fast. But it still could be just basic reinforcement of a natural behavior, which is the same technique used to teach various animals "tricks".

Re: A girl who gets gifts from birds

#130

Post by yareally »

pacaro wrote: post #77
pavel_lishin wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The final example though, where a Crow returns the camera-lens cap to the family requires some pretty advanced thinking. I think the article (and probably the podcast? haven't listened yet) make too big a deal of this. We don't know that the crows realized that the lens cap belonged to those people. Perhaps they just saw it as another neat thing to gift. Perhaps they smelled the family on it, and just returned it t…

Do birds have a sense of smell?

It's a relatively weak sense of smell for most (with exceptions for birds such as turkey vultures that can smell carrion for miles), but yes.

For many birds though, it's nowhere as good as their hearing or eyesight.

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