adumbperson
Member
So birds of prey are sometimes called stupid or dumb, but here i will show some examples of their intelligence.
I won't talk here about new world vultures because they are known to be very intelligent. I will write about Accipitriformes and Falconiformes.
Some obvious ones first, black kites and brown falcons in Australia spread fires, they pick up a burning stick and throw it. Then the escaping animals from the fire are an easy meal. Maybe its instinct or learned, its hard to tell, but it is pretty smart.
The egyptian vulture and black-breasted buzzard use tools, they use rocks to crack the eggs.
An osprey was seen throwing a rock at its rival.
And the common buzzards always know when my camera is looking at them.
Verreaux's eagle have been reported rock throwing to scare off predator.
Black kites use cigarette butts to scare off parasites.
New zealand falcon are known to cache food, one returned to a 10 day old food. So he needs to have a somekind memory for that, even if its short. (And many other raptors also cache food like the american kestrel)
Prerigine falcons apparently learned to use a train as a tool, these falcons remembered when the train will pass by, and then the train would scare the pigeons, and that was an easy meal for the falcon.
Harris hawks are pack hunters, so they are social, and they need to have somekind of intelligence to hunt in a cooperative way.
In fact many birds of prey have been seen hunting in pairs for example one bird distracts or flushes the prey out while the other one attacks, birds seen hunting in pairs were: philippine eagle, black eagle, golden eagle, aplomado falcon, bald eagle, striated caracara, prerigine falcon, wedge-tailed eagle, lanner falcon.
There is probably more examples i haven't heard of.
"During the winter of 2019-2020, Kelsey and her team were unable to recapture any of her birds outfitted with tracking devices the previous year. "They're smart birds. They remember. Once we catch a kestrel, they don't want to look at our traps," says Biles. Their avoidance even prompted Biles and her team to try three different types of traps, several new to the kestrels, but without luck."
Some consider play as a sign of intelligence, and in fact many birds of prey as youngsters play with objects by manipulating them. I witnessed short play in the common buzzard, there were two birds together, and they started acting really goofy, touching each others beaks. The young birds of prey seem to learn stuff like at wchich branches they can sit.
Now lets talk about Lady a golden eagle, and her intelligence, there were 3 cups under one she saw that food was hidden, then she flew and opened the right cup. The amazing thing was that she could remember under which cup the food was for an hour! The eagle also could recognize faces pretty well, there was this man Lady didn't like, she recognized him by his voice, face, and even when he dressed as a woman. And one day Ed was walking with her, the eagle saw an animal escaping, the over a week later Lady remembered that, and was looking for that animal in the same place.
But the caracaras are the most brainy of all birds of prey probably. They are falcons. They are mentally more like parrots and corvids.
Striated caracaras are very curious, playfull, and very great problem solvers, they can count to 8, this video is a great example
the bird clearly knows what plush needs to bring to him. Caracaras also understand that when food is hidden it didn't dissapear its just hidden.
Chimango caracaras can socially learn.
There was a caracara observed that called other two caracaras, all of the three caracaras started working together in pushing up a large rock, they succeded. (Under the rocks there were tasty insects)
And hopefully more studies in the future will shed light on the wonderfull intelligence of caracaras. (They aren't very well studied) In the captivity caracaras often are given loots of enritchement and toys.
And intelligence is also the abbility to adapt to new enviroments and birds of prey are great at that, like the prerigine falcon.
These are just some examples, I will probably get hated for saying that birds of prey can have some levels of intelligence. Sorry for the grammar mistakes (i was writing this late in the night).
I won't talk here about new world vultures because they are known to be very intelligent. I will write about Accipitriformes and Falconiformes.
Some obvious ones first, black kites and brown falcons in Australia spread fires, they pick up a burning stick and throw it. Then the escaping animals from the fire are an easy meal. Maybe its instinct or learned, its hard to tell, but it is pretty smart.
The egyptian vulture and black-breasted buzzard use tools, they use rocks to crack the eggs.
An osprey was seen throwing a rock at its rival.
And the common buzzards always know when my camera is looking at them.
Verreaux's eagle have been reported rock throwing to scare off predator.
Black kites use cigarette butts to scare off parasites.
New zealand falcon are known to cache food, one returned to a 10 day old food. So he needs to have a somekind memory for that, even if its short. (And many other raptors also cache food like the american kestrel)
Prerigine falcons apparently learned to use a train as a tool, these falcons remembered when the train will pass by, and then the train would scare the pigeons, and that was an easy meal for the falcon.
Harris hawks are pack hunters, so they are social, and they need to have somekind of intelligence to hunt in a cooperative way.
In fact many birds of prey have been seen hunting in pairs for example one bird distracts or flushes the prey out while the other one attacks, birds seen hunting in pairs were: philippine eagle, black eagle, golden eagle, aplomado falcon, bald eagle, striated caracara, prerigine falcon, wedge-tailed eagle, lanner falcon.
There is probably more examples i haven't heard of.
"During the winter of 2019-2020, Kelsey and her team were unable to recapture any of her birds outfitted with tracking devices the previous year. "They're smart birds. They remember. Once we catch a kestrel, they don't want to look at our traps," says Biles. Their avoidance even prompted Biles and her team to try three different types of traps, several new to the kestrels, but without luck."
Some consider play as a sign of intelligence, and in fact many birds of prey as youngsters play with objects by manipulating them. I witnessed short play in the common buzzard, there were two birds together, and they started acting really goofy, touching each others beaks. The young birds of prey seem to learn stuff like at wchich branches they can sit.
Now lets talk about Lady a golden eagle, and her intelligence, there were 3 cups under one she saw that food was hidden, then she flew and opened the right cup. The amazing thing was that she could remember under which cup the food was for an hour! The eagle also could recognize faces pretty well, there was this man Lady didn't like, she recognized him by his voice, face, and even when he dressed as a woman. And one day Ed was walking with her, the eagle saw an animal escaping, the over a week later Lady remembered that, and was looking for that animal in the same place.
Striated caracaras are very curious, playfull, and very great problem solvers, they can count to 8, this video is a great example
Chimango caracaras can socially learn.
There was a caracara observed that called other two caracaras, all of the three caracaras started working together in pushing up a large rock, they succeded. (Under the rocks there were tasty insects)
And hopefully more studies in the future will shed light on the wonderfull intelligence of caracaras. (They aren't very well studied) In the captivity caracaras often are given loots of enritchement and toys.
And intelligence is also the abbility to adapt to new enviroments and birds of prey are great at that, like the prerigine falcon.
These are just some examples, I will probably get hated for saying that birds of prey can have some levels of intelligence. Sorry for the grammar mistakes (i was writing this late in the night).
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