Birds have amazed scientists for years with their impressive ability to remember locations, solve problems, and even recognize human faces. If you’re short on time, here’s a quick answer to the question of how good birds’ memories are: research shows that many birds have excellent long-term memories that help them cache tens of thousands of seeds over large territories and return to those precise locations months later.
Some birds can even outperform humans on certain memory tests.
In this comprehensive article, we’ll uncover the remarkable workings of avian memory. We’ll learn how food caching birds can retrieve thousands of hidden seeds, explore how birds apply memory in navigation and migration over vast distances, and compare bird intelligence to other animals including humans and primates.
Recent research continues to reveal the impressive extent of birds’ mental capabilities, so read on to learn more about the super-charged memories of our feathered friends.
Food Caching Birds Remember Thousands of Hidden Locations
Clark’s Nutcrackers Hide Up To 30,000 Seeds per Season
Clark’s nutcrackers have astounding spatial memory capabilities. A single nutcracker can cache up to 30,000 seeds over the course of a season. They hide their seeds in thousands of locations across large geographic areas.
Remarkably, they are able to remember where the vast majority of those caches are located months later when food is scarce.[1]
Researchers have tested just how accurate nutcrackers are at recovering their hidden seeds. In one study, nutcrackers were able to find 89% of the caches they had hidden up to 285 days earlier. Their incredible memories allow them to survive harsh winters when food is limited.[2] Truly, nutcrackers’ spatial memory capabilities put even the most seasoned human hikers to shame.
Nutcrackers Recall Cache Sites Up To 9 Months Later
Clark’s nutcrackers regularly cache tens of thousands of pine seeds each autumn as a food source they can depend on through winter and springtime when other foods are scarce. Field experiments have shown that nutcrackers can remember where they hid seeds up to 9 months later with a high degree of accuracy.[3]
One study tested nutcrackers’ cache recovery after various lengths of time. Results showed 89% accuracy after 285 days, 95% accuracy after 150 days, and near perfect accuracy within 14 days of hiding seeds.
This incredible long-term spatial memory appears uniquely adapted to the nutcrackers’ lifestyle of seasonally caching and recovering thousands of seeds.[4]
Scrub Jays Plan For The Future When Caching
Beyond just remembering previous cache locations, some food caching birds like scrub jays demonstrate the ability to plan for the future by taking into account what food they will need when in the future.
A series of experiments with scrub jays revealed that the birds preferentially cache food they know will be scarce in the future over foods that will be abundant.[5]
For example, the jays cached more of the foods they had previously experienced becoming scarce when moved to a new location. The jays appear able to subjectively determine what food they will likely need in the future and cache accordingly.[6] This ability to plan for the future is exceptionally rare in the animal kingdom.
Parids May Use Mental Maps And Visual Cues to Find Food
How exactly do food caching birds like chickadees and titmice remember where they hid their seeds and insects? Studies suggest they may use a combination of cognitive spatial maps in their mind and visual cues in the environment.
Experiments have shown that when key visual landmarks are removed or altered, cache recovery accuracy drops, indicating the birds rely partly on visual cues around cache sites. However, accuracy does not drop completely, suggesting the birds also depend on cognitive spatial maps in their mind.[7]
Researchers continue working to better understand the nuances of parids’ impressive spatial memories. What is certain is that their ability to remember thousands of cache sites far exceeds the average human’s memory capabilities.
Spatial Memory and Navigation
Homing Pigeons Navigate Over Hundreds of Miles
Homing pigeons have an incredible ability to find their way home over extremely long distances. Researchers have found that homing pigeons rely on their spatial memory and use visual landmarks and geomagnetic cues to navigate on journeys of hundreds of miles.
Even when released at unfamiliar sites, the pigeons are able to determine the direction home and fly there directly. Experts believe homing pigeons develop cognitive maps based on the topography over which they fly regularly.
Their spatial memory allows them to build a detailed picture of their surroundings and the location of their loft. This mental map likely contains information on significant landmarks, as well as geomagnetic cues.
Migratory Birds Use Multiple Cues to Guide Journeys
The navigational abilities of migratory birds like geese, swallows, and warblers are also astounding. These birds are able to travel thousands of miles between their breeding and wintering grounds twice a year.
Researchers have found they use spatial memory in combination with a compass sense, celestial cues like the sun, moon, and stars, and geomagnetic cues from the earth’s magnetic field. Their spatial memory allows them to navigate over geographical features and find specific wintering sites year after year.
Some migratory birds even cache food along their migration route and use spatial memory to relocate these hidden food stores. Their impressive spatial memories allow them to navigate these epic journeys across continents successfully.
Seabirds Forage Over Vast Oceans Using Memory
Seabirds like albatrosses and petrels forage for food alone over thousands of square miles of open ocean, often gathering prey in areas abundant with fish. According to research, they use spatial memory of previous foraging sites to return to productive areas over and over in subsequent trips lasting days or weeks.
Their spatial memory allows them to build a mental map of the locations of productive feeding sites and favors effective and energy efficient foraging. Albatrosses have been found to regularly visit specific productive sites spaced over 390 miles apart.
This ability to precisely pinpoint locations spread over vast tracts of ocean is enabled by their remarkable spatial memory capabilities.
Birds Outperform Mammals on Some Memory Tests
Pigeons Match Humans in Facial Recognition Tasks
Research has shown that pigeons can perform as well as humans on certain visual memory tasks, like recognizing individual human faces. In one study, pigeons were trained to distinguish between photos of different people.
The birds were then shown pairs of faces and had to peck at the image of the person they had learned. Remarkably, the pigeons could reliably identify people they had seen before, even with different facial expressions or perspectives.
Their memory skills matched those of humans performing the same task.
Crows Identify Complex Visual Patterns
Members of the crow family like ravens and magpies have proven to have excellent visual memories. In lab experiments, these birds can memorize sets of complex dot patterns and recreate them correctly up to two years later.
Researchers have discovered that part of crows’ brains are dedicated to storing these visual memories long-term. This ability likely helps crows recognize places and resources in the wild.
Parrots Have Impressive Memories for Vocalizations
Many parrot species are skilled vocal mimics, able to imitate a wide variety of sounds, including human speech. African grey parrots can learn and precisely reproduce hundreds of vocalizations during their lifetimes.
Scientists have found that grey parrots not only mimic sounds, but also seem to categorize them, showing they understand the meaning behind the words. Their exceptional auditory memory allows parrots to learn complex vocal patterns from flock mates and humans.
Neurological Basis for Avian Memory
Key Brain Structures Involved in Avian Memory
Birds have very sophisticated cognitive abilities, including impressive feats of memory. Several key brain structures play an integral role in avian memory capabilities. The hippocampal formation and parahippocampal area are critical for spatial memory and navigation in birds.
These regions are enlarged and well-developed compared to other animals. Additionally, the avian nidopallium caudolaterale is considered analogous to the mammalian prefrontal cortex and is involved in working memory and executive function.
Songbirds also possess a specialized song control nucleus called HVC which is necessary for learning and producing songs from memory.
Neuronal Density in Birds Brains
The remarkable memory of birds may be partly explained by increased neuronal density in areas of the avian brain. According to a 2005 study, the telencephalon region related to associative learning contains over twice as many neurons per unit volume compared to mammals.
Researchers speculate that the high neuronal density enables complex information processing and underlies the advanced cognitive abilities seen in some bird species. The tightly packed neurons likely facilitate enhanced interconnectivity.
Neurogenesis May Explain Songbird Memory
Songbirds like canaries can memorize extremely long and complex songs. Neurogenesis, or the growth of new neurons, in specific brain regions involved in vocal learning may contribute to this ability. A 2021 study in Science found that neurogenesis occurs in songbird brain areas necessary for song memorization throughout adulthood.
The new neurons appear to replace older ones that undergo programmed cell death. This constant turnover of vocal control neurons could allow songbirds to indefinitely expand their vocal repertoires from memory.
Conclusion
Birds have evolved impressive memory and cognitive capabilities that equal or surpass those of many mammals. Food caching species in particular demonstrate extraordinary spatial memory by retrieving thousands of stored seeds accurately after months.
Migratory birds navigate huge distances by employing mental maps, visual landmarks, star patterns and other cues retained in memory. On tests for pattern recognition, facial identification and vocalization memory, some birds perform at levels comparable to humans and primates.
Research into the neurological mechanisms behind avian intelligence continues to uncover fascinating findings about brain structures and connectivity involved in memory and cognition. As science progresses, we gain an ever greater appreciation for the remarkable mental talents of birds that complement their breathtaking flights.
