Laura Erickson’s For the Birds

Last time, I reported on the Australian Magpies that removed one another’s tracking harnesses, outsmarting researchers while proving that their intelligence and social structure are far more advanced than scientists suspected. Today a special guest from up the shore a ways explains why people keep underestimating bird intelligence. Welcome to “For the Birds,” Jim Baker.

JIM BAKER: That news story is just more proof that humans are stupid.

LAURA: The researchers were using the most up-to-date technology to get more information about the magpies’ social behavior—

JIM BAKER: Like DUH! Those so-called scientists in Australia didn’t even try talking to the magpies—those birds would have been perfectly happy to answer all kinds of questions about their social behavior. But no—we humans who think we can find intelligent life in outer space don’t have a clue how to hold a conversation with intelligent life forms right in our own backyards.

LAURA: But Jim, people can’t have a two-way conversation with birds.

JIM BAKER: Well, there was kind of a language barrier until I figured it out. I had my breakthrough early on during the pandemic, when I was stuck in my cabin so much. One day, out of the blue, one of my jays decided to learn Italian on that Duolingo app thing. Then another jay watched a nature documentary about mountain gorillas and suddenly wanted to correspond with a researcher in Uganda, so she started studying Swahili. They picked up these new languages way faster than any human could, and suddenly it hit me—OF COURSE! We humans are stuck with just a single-channel voice box.

LAURA: That’s called the larynx, which is on our trachea. And yes, a bird’s voice box is different. It’s called a syrinx, situated where the trachea branches into the bronchial tubes, with two separate sets of muscles that are controlled independently, so birds can make two different sounds simultaneously, literally making harmony with their own voice.

JIM BAKER: Yep. What I figured out is the reason birds need those two channels. It’s to express two entirely different thoughts at the same time.

LAURA: You’re saying a single Blue Jay call can mean two entirely different things?

JIM BAKER: It’s hard for us to grasp because our brains can barely deal with one thought at a time. The only time birds think one thought at a time is when they’re sleeping. Half their brain is wide awake and working, but the other half is sound asleep.

LAURA: That’s what we call unihemispheric sleep, and you’re right—it’s something many birds can do but we humans cannot.

JIM BAKER: Yep. When Blue Jays are fully awake, using both halves of their brain, they can process twice as many thoughts and emotions as we poor excuses for intelligent life can, and they can express them simultaneously because they aren’t limited to a wimpy, one-channel larynx like we have. And I’m the one who figured it all out. Yep, ME, Jim Baker, from Baker’s Blue Jay Barn.

LAURA: But isn’t understanding the complexities of a bird’s brain and syrinx different from actually comprehending their language?

JIM BAKER: Well, I’ve always been able to understand the basics of what Blue Jays are talking about, but yeah—an accurate and complete translation of their calls wasn’t possible until a couple of months ago. That’s when I sat down with those two jays I mentioned—the ones learning Italian and Swahili. Their mouths aren’t set up to speak in English, but using their language apps they pressed the right buttons and explained the whole thing to me. They explained how we need two different English words or phrases to translate a single Blue Jay vocalization. To separate out the two channels of a single squawk, I needed two tiny microphones, placed by the two channels of their voice box. These two jays shared a bunch of different calls and explained the two different meanings coming out at the same time. That’s how we created Bluo-lingo—the first app to translate the two different meanings of Blue Jay calls.

LAURA: With your app, will we be able to hold up our phone when a jay is calling to find out, in real time, what it’s saying?

JIM BAKER: Of course not. Cell phones pick up sounds in mono, while jays squawk in stereo. And anyway, Blue Jays have way too big a vocabulary to record every one of their words. But Bluo-Lingo does translate the most common calls. Take this recording of a Blue Jay yelling its head off at a Great Horned Owl.

JAY RECORDING.

JIM BAKER: Bluo-Lingo translates one channel like this:

MUSIC RECORDING (Rolling Stones—Get Off of My Cloud!).

JIM BAKER: Yep—one channel of the Blue Jay syrinx is sort of musical. But oddly enough, the other is softer and more genteel. According to Blue Jay folklore, an influential Blue Jay a couple hundred generations ago got fixated on Jane Austen, quoting her so much that other jays started doing it, too. Blue Jays speak a living language, but even as one channel continues to evolve, the Jane Austen part has stuck. Here’s Earth Angel, from Earth Angel Bird Emporium, to translate that second channel when the jay was squawking at the owl.

EARTH ANGEL: I am most seriously displeased.

JIM BAKER: Calling in two channels helps Blue Jays express anger while still being polite. When one bird in a flock gets bossy, another Blue Jay might chide him through one branch of the syrinx:

MUSIC RECORDING Leslie Gore: You don’t own me.

JIM BAKER: While the other branch is saying:

EARTH ANGEL: There is a stubbornness about me that never can bear to be frightened at the will of others.

JIM BAKER: Blue Jays mate for life and stick together year-round. Spring may be the only time they think about sex, but even in the dead of winter, as long as they both shall live, they stay in love, as this translation from Bluo-Lingo proves.

RECORDING: Doris Day: I’ll never stop loving you.

JIM BAKER: But even as spring and their hormones are warming up, part of their brain tells them to be a little circumspect:

EARTH ANGEL: If your feelings are still what they were last April, tell me so at once. My affections and wishes are unchanged.

JIM BAKER: You know, space agencies and other groups spend millions every year searching for intelligent life “out there” when they could drop just 20 measly bucks on a bag of Baker’s Blue Jay Blend and squadrons of sentient beings would fly right to them. And now, thanks to BluoLingo, you can hear just how much they appreciate that Baker’s Blue Jay Blend, in two channels:

RECORDING Ohio Express: Yummy yummy yummy I’ve got love in my tummy.

JIM BAKER: While the other channel is saying:

EARTH ANGEL: Baker’s Blue Jay Blend is sumptuous enough to satisfy the appetite and pride of one who had ten thousand a year.

JIM BAKER: Yep. Give your Blue Jays some literal food for thought—my new, improved Baker’s Blue Jay Blend, now with added Omega 3 and fish oil to maximize those synapses. And if you’ve got a hankering to learn a new language, don’t settle for one-channel human drivel. Get Bluo-Lingo to double your pleasure. Available only at Baker’s Blue Jay Barn, up the shore a ways.

LAURA: I am all astonishment! Thanks, Jim. Today’s program featured John Keenan as Jim Baker and Karen Keenan as Earth Angel. Funding for For the Birds is provided thanks to a generous grant from Spouses of Quasi-Retired Bird Blatherers of North America. I’m Laura Erickson, and this April Fools Day program has been For the Birds.