This Thursday, November 1, 7 p.m. at the Sandy Creek Nature Center, the Oconee Rivers Audubon Society is pleased to have Dr. Betty Jean Craige as our speaker. She will present "Bird Brains: How Cosmo, a Parrot, Has Awakened Us to the Intelligence of Animals." Dr. Betty Jean Craige is Professor Emerita of Comparative Literature and Director Emerita of the Willson Center for Humanities and Arts at UGA. She has published 17 books in the fields of literature, politics, art, and history of ideas, among them a biography of ecologist Eugene Odum. Her most recent book is Conversations with Cosmo: At Home with an African Grey Parrot.
She also writes a Sunday column, "Cosmo Talks," in the Athens Banner-Herald. In addition to many ORAS members, Cosmo will also be attending this Thursday's meeting. Cosmo, a talkative African Grey Parrot, shows us that even 150 years after Darwin's "Origin of Species" we humans still overlook and underestimate the intelligence and emotions of the other animals sharing our planet. Cosmo can talk, joke, and deceive--all traits we humans have considered unique to our species. She shows us that we humans have been extraordinarily mistaken in our assumption that we are uniquely capable of thought and feeling.