The Genius of Birds

by Jennifer Ackerman

They can also remember what kind of food they buried in a particular place—and when—so they can retrieve the morsel before it spoils. This ability to remember the what, where, and when of an event, called episodic memory, suggests to some scientists the possibility that these jays may be able to travel back into the past in their own minds—a key component of the kind of mental time travel once vaunted as uniquely human.

News has arrived that songbirds learn their songs the way we learn languages and pass these tunes along in rich cultural traditions that began tens of millions of years ago, when our primate ancestors were still scuttling about on all fours.

Swedish gökotta—the act of rising early to appreciate nature—and

The cuckoo waited as the caterpillars climbed out of the nest to scale the tree, then plucked them off one at a time, like sushi from a conveyor belt.