In the past few decades, scientists have learned that the basis of everything they thought they knew about bird brains—that they were largely comprised of the most primitive and instinctual of brain structures—was wrong. Fully 75 percent of the brains of parrots and thousands of other species of birds is actually made up of a sophisticated information processing system that works much the same way as the locus of human higher-mindedness, the cerebral cortex.
The film shows scientists putting birds to the test. Can they solve problems? Can they cooperate? Do they feel emotion? New research demonstrates just how clever they can be.