Smarter Than Your Average Bird

Wanting to learn more about the social dynamics of the highly intelligent Australian magpie, scientists recently tagged five with a small harness tracker. What the academics didn’t expect was to discover altruistic and problem-solving behaviour. Within minutes of the trackers being fitted, one magpie was walking around without it. Within hours, the group of birds had successfully cooperated to remove all the trackers by pulling and pecking at them. THECONVERSATION.COM/AU