Sean Dooley

The Australian magpie looks like a crow and is very intelligent as are the corvids.

Even though they look like them and behave like them in certain ways, they're no more related to the corvids than, say, a robin is.

Corvids are highly successful, incredibly intelligent birds.

The crows and ravens, and the jays in particular, have such great memories and spatial awareness and puzzle-solving abilities.

that the scientists who research their cognitive abilities liken them to having the same intelligence as primates or something like, I think it's a six-year-old child.

It was a real surprise when the DNA studies, genetic studies, showed how closely wood swallows were allied to the, well, they kind of called them the bell magpie family for a while.

So that's magpies, carowongs, and butcher birds.

And you can see when you look at those three types of birds, how they could be related.

But it turns out these birds that kind of fly in the air and catch insects like swallows or land in the blossoming eucalypt and drink nectar are actually also in that family.

It's nuts.

I guess I do.

I'm the same, Jonah.

I'm, of course, I was fascinated with all wildlife, and including dinosaurs when I was little.

And then after I, you know, realized I wasn't ever going to see a, you know, a lion or an elephant in suburban Melbourne, and after I got told off for digging up the gravel driveway looking for fossils for dinosaurs...

I kind of ruled out the possibility of ever engaging with wildlife, but then a few years later, I got into birds, and then many years later went to discover that birds are actually living embodiments of dinosaurs.

It was like, wow, I was...

Right all the way along, there were dinosaurs right in front of me and I never knew.

But the questioner, Danny was it, mentioned that Winton is her favorite dinosaur.

That's certainly my favorite dinosaur experience.

The Lark Quarry out at Winton is one of the most brilliant displays I've ever seen.