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Those birds are geniuses, compared to chickens.

Do they do that slowly or quickly?

My chickens do what passes for thinking quickly. Not that it passes well.

As a native speaker, "birdbrain" means stupid.

The term implies something that feels like "dodo" or imbecile.

Corvids and parrots and raptors are remarkably smart, yet not every bird species is. Some are incredibly stupid.

Just think of the "Always Sunny" meme where they call Dee a "bird" all the time. It's meant to mean stupid, amongst other things.

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Sure, and you can reach a stupid decision quickly. "Birdbrain" has never had a connotation of being slow to react.

Some sayings are wrong or half-truth but they stick anyway e.g. "blind as a bat".

The chicken with its head cut off saying extends beyond the south. I grew up hearing it in the Midwest. Since chickens do run around when their heads are cut off, I think anywhere with chickens would end up with this phrase.

The Always Sunny thing is more about her looks. When they call her dumb, they tend to just call her dumb/stupid/etc.

The chicken tale predates discovey of the new continent.

You will find middle age tales with similar tales.

Birdbrain can also mean "flighty"; which corresponds to fast (and wrong) decision making.

> Corvids and parrots and raptors are remarkably smart, yet not every bird species is. Some are incredibly stupid.

Raptors are pretty stupid. They don't _need_ to be smart. They're solitary and they are typically apex predators.

I have a great view out of my window, and I have a family of crows living nearby. They cooperated to drive out owls and eagles that were nesting in a nearby park. Right now it's raining with pretty strong gusty winds and the crows are flying outside, doing pretty crazy aerobatics. They are clearly having a lot of fun!

I have never seen pigeons or seagulls do that.

Yeah I can think of plenty of impulsive and dumb things to do without much thought.

I think you're basically right. I might phrase it differently: the connotation of "birdbrain" to negative intelligence isn't disproven by noting quick read and react capabilities to certain problems, as intelligence is about more than that.

Some birds have impressive specializations, and corvids clearly punch above their brain mass weight due to impressive efficiencies with their brain architecture, but I think the framing of the article is more wrong than right to frame it around speedy information processing of particular problems.

Right, and fast decisions aren't always good decisions.

If the decisions are not routine then it is fast problem solving. You have to own a bird to understand that they are in fact capable of problem solving in their own universe.