Feathered friends not so bird-brained after all

CROWS and falcons are top of the pecking order in the league table of bird-brains, it was revealed today. Next come hawks, followed by woodpeckers and herons.

The world's first bird IQ index was compiled by Dr Louis Lefebvre from 2,000 recorded observations of unusual feeding behaviour by amateur ornithologists since 1930.

They show not all birds deserve their reputation as featherweight thinkers.

Among the examples of bird intelligence collected by Dr Lefebvre, of McGill University in Montreal, was a story of war zone vultures which waited by a mine field for stray animals to be blown up; the fly-fishing herons using insects as fish bait; gulls which dropped shells and sometimes small rabbits onto rocks to break them; and the 1949 report of tits in England which learned to open milk bottles on doorsteps.

The most skilled tool users were Caledonian crows, which built specially shaped tools out of leaves to catch insects.

At the bottom of the table were the emu, the ostrich and the New World quail.

Parrots were also disappointingly uninventive, despite having the biggest brains of any bird.

There were also "very, very few" pigeon innovations reported, said Dr Lefebvre.