A group of scientists has spent the last year teaching some carefully selected pigeons to peck at a special screen. This computer screen (it's not a "touch screen" it's a "peck screen") displays groups of objects, different shapes. Each group has a different number of shapes within it. The game is to peck the groups, in descending order by the number of shapes in them.

 

For example, you would peck the group with five shapes, then the group with four shapes, then the group with three shapes, and so forth.

 

Being able to perform this task involves a surprising amount of cognition. It means not only being able to count, but to assess what constitutes a "group" of like shapes, and finally the ability to order things by number. It turns out that pigeons can perform this task even better than monkeys. 

I remember seeing some video a while back which demonstrated that baby chickens can count and assess groups by number, as well. When faced with two groups of chickens, baby chicks have an innate drive to be part of the larger flock. It's a safety measure in a flocking species. 

 

So a group of scientists set up a barrier, created fake chicks, and plunked down a real chick. They then paraded fake chicks around the barrier, either to the left or the right. Invariably, when they let the real chick go, it would head straight for the side around which more of the fake chicks had moved. Even though the chicks couldn't see how many fake chicks were on the other side, they had apparently kept track of the numbers.

 

Pigeons, too, have turned out to be remarkably good at pecking at screens. In the early days of rocketry, pigeon guidance systems were able to ensure a surprisingly high degree of accuracy. The pigeons were trained to peck at the quadrant where the target appeared, when the target shifted away from dead center on the rocket's guidance system. Unfortunately for the pigeons, it was a one-way trip. And unfortunately for the military, it was kind of expensive to train a pigeon to do this.

 

Frankly it's only half a step away from pigeons being able to deliver pizzas based on street address and GPS directions. And best of all, you would only have to tip them a bit of the crust.