This is five minutes of entertainment from TED Talks:

Einstein the Parrot is an African Grey, a species known for their intelligence and ability to build a large vocabulary. As research into animal intelligence develops, it raises questions on how we measure intelligence – are we really that much more ‘intelligent’ than our philosophising cousins?

How do we discern the difference between a well-trained animal putting on a show and one which is making considered decisions on its behaviour?

For an interesting overview of animal cognition, check out this wikipedia article and do some further reading around the sources listed in the references section.