GETTING GOOSED

Maybe, calling someone a birdbrain is not such a great insult. If you take the time to get to know birds, you'll realize that some are pretty smart. Are they ever more clever than people?

Konrad Lorenz was a great observer of animals and he had a special fondness for ducks and geese. When geese hatch, they imprint upon, or accept as their mother, the first living thing that they see and hear. If Lorenz was the first creature that they saw and heard (he would squeak, quack, and honk at his charges), then the geese "imprinted" upon him and followed him everywhere. In this way, a young goose, Martina, became Lorenz' constant companion.

When Martina was just a gosling, Lorenz would carry her through the nearby village, meadows, and forests or have her walk beside him. One day, when Martina was still quite young and just learning to fly, he released her into the air at quite a distance from his house. To his horror, he watched her fly out of sight. Lorenz was convinced that she would get lost since she had never flown the route from the release site to home, a route that would take her through a meadow and a forest. He searched all day for her and arrived home at dusk feeling desperate and weary. But there was Martina waiting at his doorstep in great agitation.

Lorenz realized that the bird must have created an overall mental picture of the local landscape during their previous walks. She was able to use this mental picture as a map even when flying high above the ground. In general, ducks and geese can navigate a route in the air that they have previously covered only by walking or swimming. Conversely, they can follow a path on foot that they have previously seen only from the air.

Humans cannot do this without training and experience. Does this make geese smarter than people? Of course not. In fact, this isn't really the right question to ask. Geese travel by foot, water, and air while we humans, until relatively recent times, were limited to traveling long distances on foot. Geese need to know how to navigate in all three mediums while those of us who are not pilots or boat captains do not. So think twice before calling someone a "silly goose." For many animals, you got to be smart to survive.

(The teaser image can be found at http://www.myfreecolouringpages.com/bird_colouring_pages/goose.gif)