E28. A bird's brain is the most expensive thing it owns, and evolution doesn't hand one out for free. Dr. Carlos Botero, Associate Professor at the University of Texas at Austin, has spent a decade tracing what variable, unforgiving environments actually do to bird cognition, and the answer flips a lot of conventional wisdom on its head.

In this episode:

• Why the harshest places on Earth produce two kinds of birds: the puzzle-solving geniuses and the brute-force survivors, with almost nothing in between
• How big brains might not have evolved for the reasons we always assumed
• Why being one of the smartest birds in the sky can come with a hidden cost

All audio, video, and images in this episode are either original to Okay, But... Birds (© Okay Media, LLC) or used under license/permission from the respective rights holders. Bird media from the Macaulay Library is used courtesy of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology as follows:

• Willow Ptarmigan audio contributed by Leonard J. Peyton, ML50031
• American Crow audio contributed by Bob McGuire, ML229089
• Blue Jay audio contributed by Gaetan Dupont, ML173749
• Black-capped Chickadee audio contributed by Jay McGowan, ML202239
• Snowy Owl audio contributed by Gerrit Vyn, ML138288