Hey, it's Flora. We have something different for you today, and I hope you'll like it. I was

on the road last week at the Aspen Ideas Festival, moderating a conversation about the

brilliance of birds, and I have to say the facts I learned

kind of blew my mind. So the conversation was with Jennifer Ackerman, the author of

the New York Times bestseller The Genius of Birds, and

Alex Taylor, a biologist who studies New Caledonian crows, these are the toolmakers of the

Avian world.

And after talking with them, I cannot look at birds in the same way.

And I think after listening to this chat,

you will feel the same.

Or I hope so.

Okay, so here are some highlights from that conversation, which by the way took place

outside so you might hear the wind chiming in occasionally.

Jennifer, I want to start with you. When people use the term bird brain,

it's not typically a compliment.

So has our perspective on bird cleverness,

is it shifting?

Yes, so the misperception of birds as stupid

really is rooted in a misunderstanding

of the nature and anatomy of the bird brain.

So we used to think that bird brains were so small and primitive.

They were really capable of only the simplest mental processes.

...