After a while, we are told, the dog twigged to the fact that the bird wasn’t really calling him. (In fact, the bird probably has no idea what it is saying. It repeats stuff it hears a lot.)
But a commenter observed that this trick backfired in one case: “And eventually the dog grew tired of it and no longer came when anyone called.” So the dog didn’t understand what was happening either.
Another commenter asks, “why dont scientist investigate why these birds can talk and see if any others can?”
Ah, the News desk here can help in the meantime: Starlings in my old district in Toronto learned to sit on the telephone wires and make sounds either like wood doves or squirrels.
Why? People put out food for those creatures, but not for starlings if they could help it. The starlings were much smarter than the wood doves but not nearly as well liked.
See also: Ravens outrank monkeys in one social ability so far. And crows can play with kids’ toys, like primates.
and
See also: Matching Darwin’s “Tree of Life,” the “Tree of Intelligence” comes crashing down”
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