# The smartest birds in the world

Crows that make tools, parrots that understand words, jays that remember everything: the birds that have surprised scientists most. Which is the cleverest?

- 31 votes · 14 items
- Sep 1, 2019 · Émilie Lévesque
- https://even.best/en/l/2314/the-smartest-birds-in-the-world

## Top 14

1. **New Caledonian crow** (5 · ▲5 ▼0) — It makes hooks from twigs to catch grubs.
2. **Kea** (3 · ▲3 ▼0) — The New Zealand parrot that opens latches and takes cars apart.
3. **Common raven** (3 · ▲3 ▼0) — One of the biggest bird brains, and it loves to play.
4. **Goffin's cockatoo** (3 · ▲3 ▼0) — It makes tools and can wait for a better reward.
5. **Eurasian magpie** (2 · ▲2 ▼0) — The first non-mammal to pass the mirror test.
6. **Rook** (2 · ▲2 ▼0) — It raises the water level by dropping stones, as in Aesop's fable.
7. **Jackdaw** (2 · ▲2 ▼0) — It follows a human's gaze to find hidden food.
8. **Fork-tailed drongo** (1 · ▲2 ▼1) — It mimics other animals' alarm calls to steal their food.
9. **Pinyon jay** (1 · ▲2 ▼1) — It works out its social rank by watching others.
10. **African grey parrot** (1 · ▲1 ▼0) — Alex, studied for thirty years, understood dozens of words.
11. **Clark's nutcracker** (1 · ▲1 ▼0) — It remembers thousands of seed caches.
12. **California scrub jay** (1 · ▲1 ▼0) — It remembers what, where and when it hid its food.
13. **Eurasian jay** (1 · ▲1 ▼0) — The male picks gifts to suit his mate's tastes.
14. **Woodpecker finch** (1 · ▲1 ▼0) — The Galápagos finch that uses cactus spines as tools.

How is this ranking ordered? By people's votes: each ▲ adds a point and each ▼ takes one away. Anyone can vote and add what is missing.