Over morning coffee at Marko’s on the lower square, Jozo Brandić and I are watching a pair of sparrows that have made their nest in the wall of the communal palace. The hole in the wall is tiny, but there is enough space behind it for both birds and their offspring. Tireless, they collect insects all the time and bring them to the nest. “Clever birds,” I comment at some point. “Clever, indeed,” says Jozo. And then he tells me about a sparrow he has once seen at a bus station in Zagreb. Whenever a bus would come in and come to a stop, it would fly to the radiator grille in front and collect dead insects sticking to it. “Freshly killed, too,” I laugh. Jozo shakes his head: “It is amazing how quickly they learn!” Our conversation veers sharply at this point. “Luckily for them,” I sigh, “they are not clever enough to invent radiator grilles.” Humans are too clever by half, that is. “Clever birds,” Jozo chimes in with a grin.