Bird Brains

Ever since I took Dr. Terry Maxwell's Ornithology class at Angelo State I have been enjoying watching, counting, and tracking birds.  One of the things I remember from this class is that birds actually have very small brains.  Almost everything they do is because of innate instincts.  They cannot actually think through situations.  Dr. Maxwell told us that the term "bird brain" was actually pretty accurate.  But that doesn't mean that birds cannot learn anything.  In fact, here is proof that some birds can indeed learn something.

September 1 was the beginning of dove season.  Where we live now has a lake behind the back yard.  On the back side of the lake is considered "out of city limits."  Our side of the lake it is considered to be "in the city limits."  Now the reason this is important is because you can't discharge a gun within the city limits.  On Sept 1, you could hear the shotguns going crazy on the backside of the lake.  The guys who have that land leased for dove hunting were having a heyday!  But there was no hunting on our side of the lake.

After only one day of hunting the backside of the lake, I began to notice the doves that were lighting in our two dead trees in the back yard.  Yep, they had learned that our side of the lake was safe and the backside of the lake was dangerous.  I had seen four or five dove fly over our yard that last few days.  But ever since Sept 1... take a look below.

There were 52 Mourning and White-winged Doves sitting in these trees in our backyard on Sept 2.  Yep they can learn.