"You know," Twilight said as she lounged on the couch with her girlfriend and watched the news, "If I had been told that magic was going to make some bird species intelligent enough to be recognized as sophonts—and, you know, that magic was a real, demonstrable, and testable phenomenon—I would have guessed it would just be ravens and parrots."

"Really?" Sunset asked, actually managing to sound interested. "I have to ask, why you'd have put your money there?"

Twilight shot her a look. "Have you read what scientists found out about them from before the shift? Ravens were already clever tool users capable of vocally passing on knowledge to not only other members of their groups, which by the way operate on established social structures that have social consequences when broken, but to other groups of ravens around them who can then pass it on to other groups. Heck, one guy who routinely harassed ravens as part of an old experiment to see if they could learn facial recognition learned that they did the hard way. When he went to set off two unkindnesses dozens of miles away to do the experiment's second run, they attacked him on sight because they already had a description of the guy from the other ravens. And parrots could learn, understand, and communicate in other languages. Some grey parrots even showed the ability to make jokes, and again, this was before magic!"

"Huh," Sunset said as she processed this. "And you're sure they weren't intelligent enough to be recognized as sophonts before the saturation?" There were a few moments of uncomfortable silence. "We'll call PAULDRONS in the morning, make sure there aren't any lingering issues."

"Agreed." Twilight said, going back to watching. "Still, I can't believe emu of all birds get a brain boost via magic."

"What I can't believe," Sunset said, gesturing at the screen where Blackfeather Kicked-a-Dingo was giving his address, "is that he's demanding the 'territory conceded to his ancestors after winning the war' that was 'stolen in a brutal terror campaign' afterwards. I mean, that has to be some sort of misremembered thing from before they became intelligent enough to understand stuff right?"

Twilight suddenly had a very nervous look on her face. "Hahaha, funny story about that actually..."

Three years later, and with only one intervention by Sunset to prevent an outbreak of war from the actions of extremists of both species, Dromaia was recognized as the official second nation upon continental Australia.

Author's Notes:

Not sure where Whiteeyes is going with the land owed to emu, but here's a case of real world experimentation with corvid facial recognition.

Never mind that first part. DragonGeek informed me of the Great Emu War.