Magic!

11:30 this evening I was outside and heard a sound and looked up:   Eleven geese flew overhead, visible in the lights of the town.

Birds are magic!   Ethereal.  Otherworldly.   Transforming to those of us who look at them and listen to them, creatures of color and song and motion.

Like us they tend to be visual, unlike our smell-brained ancestors.  And the information packaged in their tiny brains is amazing!

Instincts by the gigabyte, and the ability to learn.  Some birds are toolnakers, like those crows in New Caledonia that can manufacture tools.   The African Gray Parrot can learn human words and, it seems, may even reason verbally with them.   Their heads are like an advanced microchip replete with RAM and ROM, while we humans resemble early computers built out of vacuum tubes, piloting around clumsy massive bodies.