Shouldn’t we be saying “smartest bird in the wild?” Not if we’re talking about a magpie. A Black-billed Magpie residing in a Rocky Mountain town at this moment.
It was in a room.
And because it was smart it hopped out of that room on cue. Dr. Bob, a sometime contributor of sharp bird photos here, recently related this experience. He pointed out that magpies are super smart. Something to do with brain-body ratio. Like in the same ballpark as great apes.
We normally focus on their outside stuff, the colorful field markings, long tail and that haughty strut we get from magpies and others in its high-IQ family—known as “Corvids.” (Crows, ravens, jays, you know.) These guys are smart. And they know it.
Recently, in Dr. Bob’s “room” there was a Black-billed Magpie who’d hopped through an open patio door and made himself welcome. He knows that Bob’s got a soft spot for Corvids and conversed about a snack. (We have the audio.) Bob suggested some popcorn and the magpie verbalized, “Hell yeah, buddy.” You don’t need to be a linguist to know that’s what was chirped.
(Same thing happened to this reporter in a different time and place—involving negotiations about potato chips in Rocky Mountain National Park, and the magpie there convincingly communicated, “Come on, nobody can eat just one!”)
Magpie vocalization is clearly, eerily, like “talk.” Not parrot mimicry; parrots are cool but mainly imitate. Magpies are conversationalists. After Dr. Bob’s neighborly bird hopped through that open door. Bob said to his wife, “Honey, there’s a magpie in our family room.”
She yelled back, “Not for long, he isn’t!” The literate magpie didn’t need to hear more. He quickly hopped back out before any territorial female stalked in with a broom.
From the patio, he looked up at Dr. Bob, saying: “Your lady of the house has kicked me out—bummer. But no worries, guy, I’ll be back.” Then it flew away. The smartest bird in the room had left the building.
A lot of birds, not just Magpies, seem to be getting more comfortable in human spaces these days. My morning coffee is often disturbed by Sparrows (of which variety I do not know) darting across my outdoor table less than two feet from my beak. They seem to be saying, “Hey, this is my living room, get out.”