Research has demonstrated that we humans don’t multitask well; instead we switch quickly from one single task to another. But this switching produces a mental bottleneck and interferes with performance. This means that the moron in the BMW next to you texting his girlfriend is either driving or texting at some level, but not both simultaneously. He is as dangerous as an alcohol-impaired driver. So how can birds fly through trees and catch insects, or, like swifts, copulate in flight? How can a gannet dive from 100 feet into a wavy ocean, swim, and catch a fish in two seconds or less?

Because bird brains are built differently than ours. Human brains are adapted for thinking (cellphone/texting drivers excepted) while bird brains are, with a proportionately larger cerebellum and smaller cerebrum adapted for muscle coordination which provide birds with the ability to react instinctively rather than having to mentally process their next move. So an owl or Cooper’s Hawk can fly through a dense forest in pursuit of a scurrying rodent as the raptor isn’t thinking that much but mainly following its genetically ingrained instincts. It all happens very smoothly with no need to stop one task and refocus on another and then switch back again. Hummingbirds flap their wings 40-80 times a second, move forward or back, hover, suck nectar, and defend their territories all in a miniscule amount of time. Flying requires a very complex set of motions unlike anything humans can do. Even the best gymnasts or high divers don’t approach the level of coordination a bird must have to control its movements. The
primary flight feathers for propulsion, secondary feathers for lift, the thumb feathers (alula) to avoid stalls, the tail for turning and braking, must all work in perfect concert with exquisite timing. Meadowlarks, Horned Larks, and other birds of grasslands sing while flying to attract mates and defend their territory, difficult but essential activities which these birds perform adroitly.

An article in Science Daily provides some explanation. “The pallium ( the layers of grey and white matter that cover the upper surface of the cerebrum in vertebrates) of birds does not have any layers comparable to those in the human cortex; but its neurons are more densely packed than in the cerebral cortex in humans: pigeons, for example, have six times as many nerve cells as humans per cubic millimeter of brain. Consequently, the average distance between two neurons in pigeons is fifty per cent shorter than in humans. As the speed at which nerve cell signals are transmitted is the same in both birds and mammals, researchers found … “that because their small brain is densely packed with nerve cells that birds are able to reduce the processing time in tasks that require rapid interaction between different groups of neurons.”
The laws of physics and biology control bird behavior; we depend on society’s laws to govern ours. We might have more mental abilities than birds, but behind the wheel, I wonder where they go.