THEY may be bird-brained, but they are certainly not stupid.

According to research, our feathered friends can tell between styles of art, are useful at making tools and can even use words they have learned to mimic in order to communicate with humans.

An international consortium of 29 neuroscientists, including one from the University of Newcastle, discovered that far from being stupid, birds are quite brainy.

And they are proposing an overhaul of the naming of the structures of the bird brain to correctly portray them as more comparable to mammals in their cognitive ability.

Dr Tom Smulders, a lecturer and researcher with Newcastle University's School of Biology, and his colleagues argue that the century-old traditional terminology is outdated and does not reflect new molecular, genetic and behavioural studies that reveal the brainpower of birds.

For example, they highlighted behavioural studies demonstrating that pigeons can discriminate cubist from impressionistic styles of painting; that crows can make useful tools and pass on their skills to other birds, and that parrots can not only learn human words but use them to communicate with humans.

The researchers say the traditional view of evolution as a progressive process is outdated, pointing out that so-called primitive animals such as birds evolved 50 to 100 million years after mammals.

The findings, by the The Avian Brain Nomenclature Consortium, calling for the renaming of part of the bird's brain are published in Nature Reviews Neuroscience.

In the paper, the consortium members write: "We believe that names have a powerful influence on the experiments we do and the way in which we think.

"For this reason, and in the light of new evidence about the function and evolution of the vertebrate brain, the international consortium of neuroscientists has reconsidered the traditional 100-year-old terminology that is used to describe the avian cerebrum".

Dr Smulders, a Belgian researcher who has studied bird brains for 12 years, said: "Many people have outdated notions of what bird brains are like, but there are lots of very smart birds who do amazing things which it would be difficult to get mammals, such as rats or dogs, to carry out.

"It is about time that people, not just scientists, appreciated birds for what they are -a group of species which has independently evolved brains and cognitive abilities comparable to those of mammals.

"Comparing birds with mammals can teach us a lot about how brains work, amongst other things."