| Please help a New Yorker
About twenty years ago,in NYC,watching late night TV and probably smoking..ah...something,I saw a documentary done in England ,and it might have been produced by the BBC.It's subjects were the crows,jays and the blue tit being studied,investigated and tested for their learning and group intelligence or some such.The black crows,if I remember,passed all sorts of solve-the-puzzle-to-get-the-treat bedevilment and the tit had its gumption challenged,waiting first thing for the morning milkman so as to peck through the tin foil bottle caps for the cream underneath only to have solid wood,faked-up caps subtituted AND the delivery time changed to all different hours,(the poor wee things),all very scientific,serious and,from over here,funny as hell.For the blue jays,I think,the question to be answered was-Is it the sight or smell or movement or shape of the cat that warns the birds? I remember this,the "shape" test,the last thing,before I dropped to the floor in final hysterics-the researchers mounted a two dimensional cut out,shaped like Puss-wuss,on a low cart set on tracks through the grass and they were hunched behind,inching this project slowly closer to the birds, like sappers on Normandy Beach,with the hushed play-by-play commentary driving the excitement only higher.
Thanks to the Internet I can at least hope to track this gem down.Does anyone over there remember it? Thank you.  | 
Linear Mode
