"Bird Brain" -- A lovely documentary about birds

Seeing the pretty, beautiful species of birds perform exceedingly complex tasks was extremely entertaining. The entertaining imagery presented in this documentary wasn’t the only thing I found helpful.

I found that larger bodies of works, like this documentary, are a wealth of information not only themselves but in their introductions of researchers. Bird Brain introduced me to seven distinct researchers that all have important, key research that I could use in my literature review.

Though mainly focused on birds, some of the researchers introduced are not limited to that species. I also found that this documentary was a great way of being introduced to the kinds of work being done in this field.

For instance, the box problem with four different entry points was a key insight into how researchers test the adaptability of birds, and understand what kinds of problem-solving techniques they are able to apply in the wild and in captivity (20:46).

I found it most interesting that the writing style of TIME and the narration in this documentary are almost one in the same. Just as TIME discussed in their article about animal communication, the documentary discusses bird groups and the intricate social structures they have.

The rooks watch their colleague from above (Bird Brain)

In an experiment involving the rook species of bird, the researchers allowed half of the group to watch a solution to a puzzle one way, and the other half were allowed to watch a different solution to the same puzzle. Astonishingly, each group mimicked exactly what they had seen, without variation (29:35).

All in all, the wealth of information presented in this documentary makes it a worthwhile watch – whether it be for pleasure or for research.