The Pintailed Whydah is a bully. To comment on the cleverness or stupidity of birds, one has to be anthropomorphic – how else translate their actions, and give them a meaning? So that’s the way I’ ve tried to think about it and I’m afraid I’ ve come to the conclusion that they’re nothing but a pretty face - the “bird brain” label sticks. Chickens are stupid. When they’re scared, they huddle together and suffocate each other; and they rush across roads in the face of oncoming traffic. In fact their brains are so redundant that they can still run around without them. From my experience, geese too are stupid, never mind what the Romans say – they can’t in fact tell friend from foe, and gaggle indiscriminately. My landlady in Harare had a flock of them in her garden that refused to recognise me as a legitimate, fully paid-up tenant. What’s more stupid looking (and actually, bloody frightening) than seeing 12 geese rush at you, necks outstretched, hissing? Hadeda ibises
Left wing commentary from the heart and the head