Birds Korea: Bird-brained
What qualities define us as human? Is it our intelligence, our complex language and empathy that set us above other animals? Why do we criticize others by saying that they behave like animals, eat like pigs or are too “bird-brained” to understand? Perhaps we should stop for a moment, consider how our own species looks at other species, and imagine how we might see the world if we were truly bird-brained.
To understand the world as a bird does is a great challenge. For a start, there is only one species of human, but ten thousand species of bird, each unique in terms of ecological niche, intelligence and powers of communication. We humans are rightly proud of our language ability, but if we experienced the world as a nightingale, we would have a vocal repertoire of 1,160 syllables. Moreover, our syrinx would free us to sing different syllables simultaneously. No doubt we would win the praise of poets for pouring forth our souls abroad in ecstasy, but what would the clatter of human language mean and sound to us then? Even if we were a bird as humble as an eastern great tit, we could still communicate well about the true essentials of life. We would sing, rather than fight or pay money, to mark out our territory. We might not be able to read or write, but we would still be able to spot and communicate about food and danger to our families, making one sound for a cat and another for an incoming hawk.
As birds, we would not miss out on love, or its avian equivalent, either. Experiments prove that another Korean species, the Eurasian jay, is capable of empathy. If we were jays, we would watch to see what foods our partners liked and would offer these as presents, to help strengthen the bonds between us. Or as a bar-tailed godwit, a sword-billed bird of tidal-flats and estuaries, we would spend the winter far away from our spouses. But as spring came, we would both navigate thousands of kilometers back to our own patch of tundra, without maps or machinery. Males arrive back first, joined within days by the same female as the previous year, carrying the future in her belly.
We are human. And we should use the best of our abilities to redefine our relationship with other species. “Bird-brained” should not be considered an insult. Instead, it should be reserved as praise for those who are truly aware of the world, and its beautiful, near-infinite complexity.