I treasure the first time I was motivated to look past the surface of a wild scene, to ponder the meanings, the fates, of the natural structures or wild organisms I was watching. It was the first time that I tried to consider the meanings, the ramifications of the interactions between the organisms in my view. Perhaps you have known the same joy. I truly hope you’ve felt the profound awareness that comes from realizing that, just as for humans, other organisms have life stages; know the eagerness of youth and the caution of age; have good days and bad, both positive and negative interactions; and know times of plenty and of want. Some know joy (I truly believe), and most all prey animals probably know some sort of fear. And it seems that many can make decisions based on cerebration, and not driven solely by mere instinct.

I like to believe my habit of pondering what is behind a natural scene began with a profound observation during the spring of my ninth year. I have written elsewhere of how I would hide in a clump of dogwood in the 2-acre woodlot at the far end of the pasture on our farm in the Missouri River Bottomlands some 100 miles east-ish from Kansas City. I often had crouched in that patch to spy on the lives of animals in the woodlot, but this day, as I sat motionless, staring into the forest of oak, elm, and pecan trees, a small brown lump worked its way into the corner or my eye. 

A mother bobwhite quail was picking her way over the forest floor just 5 feet in front of me. She seemed the very model of relaxed caution: taking a few steps, checking for danger, then turning to deliver some clucking directive to her brood. Behind her, in single file, came six tiny chicks. I still can hear the faint chirping and fussing sounds they made while jumping onto, or tripping over, twigs and leaves in their path. Even with an occasional stop to scratch for food, they kept in fussy formation and moved on. 

I had never seen anything so small, so perfect, so exquisite! Miniature eyes scanned their wild new world. Their feathers were microscopic and incredibly precise. Inside those tiny breasts beat a four-chambered heart smaller than I could imagine, and (I now know) racing five to six times faster than mine. A dewdrop-sized brain directed a Lilliputian symphony of muscle and bone, of organ action and reaction. My brain raced to grasp what I was seeing. I yearned to interpret bird talk, to know what the generations were saying to each other. I wanted to understand what processes were going on inside those tiny bodies. 

Even with all of that, I was left with a perplexing question: Just what words would accurately describe the degree and flavor of that mother quail’s care for her young? Could we call it love, akin to what I knew at home? Was it something less, or something else?  I, of course, didn’t understand until much later, after beginning my formal study of zoology, that I was treading on a big question afloat in the world of life sciences. At the time of my observation, 1940, most students of biology still thought of the wild brain as being basically a not well understood black box, and that animal actions were ruled by instincts. Over the years since, many elegant experiments and observations have moved the thinking on wild animal cerebration far beyond that black box. 

Consider the decades-old observation of a group of rhesus monkeys in a large cage. The experimenters had placed a number of cardboard boxes in the cage to see how the monkeys might use them in attempting to reach a stalk of bananas tied to the top center of the cage. As expected, the monkeys studied the boxes then began to stack them, crawling up the stack of boxes to go higher and higher. Then all hell broke loose; they must have realized that the placer of the last box would have exclusive access to the prize. Not exactly a social moment orchestrated by instinct or peck order. Definitely a moment brought on by realizing that two-plus-two equals four!

I’m reminded of a series of elegant experiments carried out a few decades ago by a woman biologist in England, whose name I can’t recall. Her test animal was what she called the scrub jay, which probably is the common jay in the British field guides, a somewhat common bird of western Europe. Think something similar to our blue jay. She covered the floor of a large room with 3 to 4 inches of loose soil. She placed both grain and meal worms around on the soil surface. Then, one at a time, she loosed a series of unfed jays into the room. The birds began to eat both grain and meal worms until, apparently, satiated. Then they began to bury the remaining grain and worms. Three days later, the unfed birds, again one at a time, were loosed into the room. They began to dig up both grain and mealworms, but ate only the grain; by this time, the worms had rotted. And three days later, the unfed birds, again one at a time, were loosed into the room which again had both grain and meal worms scattered about on the soil. The birds again ate their fill, then began to bury food, but only the grain!  

In another experiment with jays, she let, singly and unfed, each of a test population into the room where grain had been scattered around on top of the soil. A half dozen other jays were in a cage in one corner of the room. The test jays again ate their fill, then proceeded to bury the left over grain. And three days later, the same birds, singly, were let back into the room in which the only alteration was the removal of the cage of watching birds. The test birds dug up grain and ate their fill, then they proceeded to dig up and rebury the unused grain in different places! Other birds were asked to follow the same procedure, but without birds watching, and they did not rebury their stored grain! 

Please know that the studies mentioned are but the barest tip of the iceberg of that mass of elegant studies that have explored the expanding world of animal intelligence. Perhaps you’ve witnessed some animal doing something that surprised you. Please consider sharing with us; we would love to hear your story.