Bird Has Mind Like a Steel Bird Cage

ByABC News
October 24, 2006, 3:55 PM

Oct. 25, 2006 — -- Have you ever put something where you were sure you could find it, and then forget where you put it?

What if you had to recover thousands of items that you had hidden several months ago in thousands of different locations?

Bet you couldn't do it. Unless, of course, you're a Clark's nutcracker. This amazing little bird, a member of the famously clever corvid family, collects 30,000 or so tiny pine nuts each fall, and then hides them in about 5,000 different locations over an area of about 15 square miles.

Then in the winter, when snow blankets its natural habitat in the western United States, the nutcracker returns to collect its cache with astounding precision.

"It's an amazing feat," said Brett Gibson, an animal behaviorist and assistant professor of psychology at the University of New Hampshire.

For several years now Gibson has been trying to figure out exactly how the nutcracker pulls off its magic every year. He's not alone. Other scientists have been working in the same field, and while they have a fairly good idea of how the nutcracker finds all those caches, it's still somewhat of a mystery.

Most research is done inside buildings, because studying these smart birds in their natural setting is very difficult. A bird doesn't always go where you think it's going to go, and it's pretty hard for humans to follow a bird because birds can fly, and we can't. So most of what we know about the nutcracker comes from the laboratory, which the birds seem to adjust to quickly.

One thing is clear. These birds have a phenomenal memory. That partly justifies some of the research, because there are still many unanswered questions about human memory, and the more we learn about memory in general the better the chance of understanding and dealing with our own memory problems.

But forget about that. For now, concentrate on the nutcracker.

The nutcracker is closely related to ravens and crows -- widely considered to be the smartest of birds -- and jays and magpies, my personal favorite. All have good memories, and ravens and magpies can count, or at least recognize groups of different sizes up to seven. But when it comes to feats of memory, the Clark's nutcracker tops the list.