> Bird brains are probably tuned for rapid stick assessment. I don’t think this is true, birds use all sorts of things to make their nests, including improvisi

> Bird brains are probably tuned for rapid stick assessment. I don’t think this is true, birds use all sorts of things to make their nests, including improvising with human objects if there are no sticks. Many don’t use sticks at all (e.g. glueing grass and leaves together with mud). Crows and pigeons in particular are probably smart enough to recognize a “good stick” as a valuable structural material based on physical principles, and can easily transfer that understanding to other “sticks” made of metal, plastic, etc. Note that for crows the assessment is not “rapid”, they play with sticks before deciding to accept or reject them: https://corvidresearch.blog/2016/03/29/everything-you-want-to-know-about-crow-nests/ https://corvidresearch.blog/2016/03/29/everything-you-want-t...