I don't have an explanation, but I recommend looking into the work of Onur Güntürkün who is doing research on bird brains. Güntürkün: Cognition without cortex.

I don't have an explanation, but I recommend looking into the work of Onur Güntürkün who is doing research on bird brains. Güntürkün: Cognition without cortex. https://www.cell.com/trends/cognitive-sciences/abstract/S1364-6613(16)00042-5 https://www.cell.com/trends/cognitive-sciences/abstract/S136... Press release: http://news.rub.de/english/press-releases/2016-03-03-complex-cognition-some-birds-are-just-smart-apes http://news.rub.de/english/press-releases/2016-03-03-complex... His talks are pretty good, there may be higher quality recordings than this one though: https://youtu.be/nHTTVFDjQ1Q https://youtu.be/nHTTVFDjQ1Q