Talking to the birds

The New Yorker had a good article this week about the work of Irene Pepperberg, the researcher who worked with the African gray parrot Alex until his death last fall. I always enjoy learning more about avian intelligence, and this article does a good job of describing Pepperberg’s work in the context of other studies, historical and current, of animal cognition. And there are some nice stories about the birds, Alex and two others, Griffin and Arthur, that Pepperberg continues to work with. This one made me laugh:

[Pepperberg] told a story about the time an accountant was working on some tax forms near Alex’s cage, and was more or less ignoring him. Peering down at the visitor, he asked her, “Wanna nut?” No, she said, not looking up. Want some water? No. A banana? No. And so on, through his repertoire of nameable desires. At last, Alex asked, in a tone in which it was hard not to detect a note of impatience, “What do you want?”

My brother Vinny has been keeping birds, mostly parrots, for years, and he has told me lots of stories about his birds. (My favorite involves a time when Vinny was working at home, sitting at the computer with a bird on each shoulder, hanging out with him and watching what he was doing. One of the birds, Otis, said, “We are all buddies!” They’re social animals, part of a flock, just like each of us.) The most fascinating thing about my brother’s birds, or the research I’ve read about crows and other corvids, parrots like Alex, or other birds, is the sense that there’s somebody in there. Pepperberg’s work with Alex was motivated by the desire to learn what is going on in his mind, and who it was in there. Alex demonstrated impressive communication skills, but the point was not to teach him language; it was to communicate with him and learn about how his mind works. As exciting as it would be to discover extraterrestrial intelligence, I think we share this planet with other intelligences that we’ve only begun to understand.