Bird Brains of Britain

I always get quite angry when people think that birds don't have brains and can't think for themselves. OK, so they don't have the same kind of thought process as we do but they are certainly not stupid by any means. Scientists have shown that birds can solve problems and many people in the past have trained various types of birds.
Wild birds can often die of shock if they have been caught by a cat, which just goes to show that they experience some form of emotional reaction such as fright. They may not have any visible injuries but the shock kills within the first twenty four hours, so that is why the RSPCA will advise you to keep the bird in a quiet, dark place for a day and if they are still alive after that, they can be released.
In my garden I have fed successive flocks of house sparrows for the last twenty five years. Just a few weeks ago there was a sparrow hawk sitting up on the roof of a house across the road watching the flight corridor the sparrows use to get to my garden from the park, but they could see him there and didn't come to feed for about a week.
Then I noticed one morning that they all came in a flock, ate their seed very quickly without any chirping and left all within ten minutes. The same thing happened in the evening too. All the time there was a lookout perched in the honeysuckle where he couldn't be seen. Usually when they come to feed they are a noisy bunch and they will often spend the whole afternoon 'pinging' about the garden, having a bit of seed, then a drink and a bath, then some more seed. Then they will all sit about preening themselves in the honeysuckle or on the fence and they cheep constantly. I have often called them the 'chip chip' gang because of the constant cheeping noise that they make!
This behaviour has been repeated every day for a couple of weeks but I have also noticed that they don't always come at the same time and frequently use different routes. So, I can only assume that the sparrowhawks are still around the area and these little birds are clever enough to use tactics to outwit them in order not to be the dinner menu for a sparrowhawk.
Obviously there is safety in numbers!