Well, it has been shown that birds have twice the density of neurons to mammals, and their brain is larger as a proportion of body mass: https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1517131113

So their brain can be equivalent to a much larger primate.

does anybody else at least question the “put a bunch of neurons in a dish” level of understanding behind intelligence

we know nothing of their coordination and base everything on whats equivalent to parameters size