This experiment was with "seven wild birds".

"The birds were using reasoning that was more commonly seen in great apes and humans, the New Zealand team reported in the journal Current Biology."

"To further test the crows' tool-using talents, scientists set seven wild birds a tricky task.

"The crows were presented with:

"A scrap of meat, which was tucked away, out of reach, in a box;
A small twig, which was too short to reach the food;
And another longer twig, which was long enough to reach the food, but was locked away well out of bill-grabbing range in another box.

"The birds surprised the scientists with their quick thinking.

"Alex Taylor, lead author of the paper, said: "The creative thing the crows did was to use the short stick to get the long tool out of the box so that they could then use the long stick to get the meat."

"Russell Gray, another author of the paper, told the BBC News website: "What is most amazing is that most of them did this on the first trial."

Arf