<P> New Caledonian crows have been observed in the wild to use sticks with their beaks to extract insects from logs . While young birds in the wild normally learn this technique from elders, a laboratory crow named "Betty" improvised a hooked tool from a wire with no prior experience . The woodpecker finch from the Galapagos Islands also uses simple stick tools to assist it in obtaining food . In captivity, a young Española cactus finch learned to imitate this behavior by watching a woodpecker finch in an adjacent cage . </P> <P> Crows in urban Japan and the United States have innovated a technique to crack hard - shelled nuts by dropping them onto crosswalks and letting them be run over and cracked by cars . They then retrieve the cracked nuts when the cars are stopped at the red light . Macaws have been shown to utilize rope to fetch items that would normally be difficult to reach . Striated herons (Butorides striatus) use bait to catch fish . </P> <P> Using rewards to reinforce responses is often used in laboratories to test intelligence . However, the ability of animals to learn by observation and imitation is considered more significant . Crows have been noted for their ability to learn from each other . </P> <P> At the beginning of the 20th century, scientists argued that the birds had hyper - developed basal ganglia, with tiny mammalian - like telencephalon structures . Modern studies have refuted this view . The basal ganglia only occupy a small part of the avian brain . Instead, it seems that birds use a different part of their brain, the medio - rostral neostriatum / hyperstriatum ventrale (see also nidopallium), as the seat of their intelligence, and the brain - to - body size ratio of psittacines (parrots) and corvines (birds of the crow family) is actually comparable to that of higher primates . </P>

Which is the most intelligent bird in the world