Do birds have the capacity for fun?

future for more careful consideration. This process may rely on generating and then testing a wide variety of possibilities and selecting the one that empirically works best. Being a successful innovator is likely to require many psychological and emotional attributes, such as determination, focus, analytical ability, persistence and resilience. These may have little to do with the ability to generate novel thoughts. Play, even in the relatively restricted sense used by psychologists and biologists, may be coercive, bullying and cruel, though not when conducted playfully. The make-up of their personalities and the constraints of day-to-day living will often mean that many, perhaps most, people are neither playful nor creative in their adult lives. By creating protected space for themselves, humans can, however, change their behaviour and start to meet the challenges of their lives in new ways. It is an open question just how many are willing and able to make the change. A romantic view would be that anybody can become creative. An interesting alternative is that at least some of those individuals who are not creative are especially good at taking the novel ideas of others and doing something useful with them. Yet others may be predisposed to adopt a good innovation when they see one. Human well-being is a justifiable end in itself. Playful play contributes to having fun and the sense of feeling good about oneself. The benefit of coming up with new ideas or actions in the course of such play either immediately or in the future is an additional benefit. The benefits are not inevitable but, given the value attached to creativity, they should be taken seriously.