I’m still blown away whenever I see videos of crows solving puzzles better and faster than apes, using tools and everything.
What purpose does it serve for birds to be smarter than apes? They already have physical advantages that would keep them in a safe evolutionary niche like flying, beaks, and claws. There’s absolutely no need for them to develop such intelligence.
Well, all the food is "down there." So is the nest, which is built in one place from material gathered in quite another place. A good deal of their business is conducted where they're out of their element. Get down there, do what you gotta do, but do it smartly and get back upstairs asap.
Then there's the migration thing.
And birds in the wetlands have it even more complex.
If they weren't exceptionally intelligent they'd be gone with the rest of the dinosaur tribes.
And I'm equally blown away by the fact that my Ruby Throated hummingbirds here in Michigan winter in Mexico then in the spring fly non-stop across the Gulf of Mexico (approx. 24 hours) in their migration to Mich. One would think they would stop once they crossed the Gulf and spent the rest of the season there along the Gulf states.......
I love birds and don't believe for a second that they are a product of evolution. Every species across this planet is hard wired for its own survival, from the food it eats, to its courtships to its own nest building requirements and its annual migratory pattern.........They're not accidental, God created each and every one of them specifically.