Lead co-author, Barbara Klump, said social learning is the basis of different regional cultures, and some animals, such as primates and birds, appear to learn socially. "Children are masters of social learning. From an early age, they copy skills from other children and adults. However, compared to humans, there are few known examples of animals learning from each other," Klump said. "Demonstrating that food scavenging behavior is not due to genetics is a challenge," Klump added.
However, a few years ago, Richard Major shared a video with senior author Lucy Aplin, showing a sulphur-crested cockatoo opening a closed garbage bin. The cockatoo used its beak and foot to lift the heavy lid then shuffled along the side to flip it over, accessing a rich reward of leftover food. Aplin, who was then researching at Oxford University and has since moved to the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior in Germany, and Klump were fascinated by the footage.
"It was so exciting to observe such an ingenious and innovative way to access a food resource, we knew immediately that we had to systematically study this unique foraging behavior," Klump said.
Adapted to living with humans
Major, a Senior Principal Research Scientist at the Australian Museum Research Institute, has spent more than 20 years studying Australian bird species such as the noisy minor, the infamous 'bin-chicken' ibis and cockatoos. "Like many Australian birds, sulphur-crested cockatoos are loud and aggressive and often act like a pack of galahs. But they are also incredibly smart, persistent and have adapted brilliantly to living with humans," Major said.
John Martin a Research Scientist at Taronga Conservation Society, who has worked alongside Major on many urban bird projects, explained how the research was conducted. "Australian garbage bins have a uniform design across the country, and sulphur-crested cockatoos are common across the entire east coast. The first thing we wanted to find out is if cockatoos open bins everywhere."
"In 2018, we launched an online survey in various areas across Sydney and Australia with questions such as, 'What area are you from, have you seen this behavior before, and if so, when?' The survey ran for two years and helped us determine how the behavior spread to other cockatoos in Sydney. Importantly we'll be continuing this survey in 2021," Martin said.
Rapidly spreading behavior
By the end of 2019, residents from 44 areas had observed the bin-opening behavior, showing that it had spread rapidly and widely. Further analysis of the survey results showed that the behavior reached neighboring districts more quickly than districts further away, indicating that the new behavior wasn't popping up randomly across Sydney. "These results show the animals really learned the behavior from other cockatoos in their vicinity," Klump said.
The researchers also marked around 500 cockatoos with small paint dots at three selected hot spots to enable the identification of individual birds, allowing the researchers to observe which birds could open bins. It turned out that only around ten percent could do so, most of which were males. The rest waited until the "pioneers" opened the garbage bins to then help themselves.
A compilation of two clips above showing sulphur-crested cockatoos opening lids of household bins to get food out. Clip 1 shows a bird opening the lid by grabbing it on the rim, holding it with the bill and then walking along the left side of the bin pushing the lid until it flips over. Clip 2 shows a color-marked Sulphur-crested cockatoo trying unsuccessfully to open the lid a couple of times. Then it grabs the lid with its bill and left foot, holds it with its bill and walks along the right side of the bin pushing the lid until it flips over. Two further color-marked birds join the first bird to also get some food out of the bin.There was one exception, however: in late 2018, a cockatoo in northern Sydney reinvented the scavenging technique itself. Birds in neighboring districts then copied the behavior. "We observed that the birds do not open the garbage bins in the same way, but rather used different opening techniques in different suburbs, suggesting that the behavior is learned by observing others," Klump said.
Credit: Barbara Klump / Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior
The scientists interpreted the results as an emergence of regional subcultures. They hope that their findings will also generate a broader understanding of urban living animals. "By studying this behavior with the help of local residents, we are uncovering the unique and complex cultures of their neighborhood birds," Klump said. Martin said Sydney and Australian residents can continue to help the research by participating in the Bin-Opening Survey and Big City Birds citizen science programs.
Reader Comments
Back pre internet, when I told folks that my plan to was teach him to talk, it was uniformly scoffed at.
Nowadays, I'd just show them this: [Link] "Get ready for bed!"
RC
R.C.
*Hollywood vice cop says, 'Liberace! We''ve got a report that you've been having sex with parrots! Say it ain't so."
Liberace: Never! But I admit I might have kissed a cockatoo.
rc
Even though I live in Florida, (which supposedly has more birds than normal) I've never had problems with any birds except a woodpecker that used to wake me up banging on some metal sheeting.
I did, in my youth often see
tyrannosaurusesoops, dusky seaside sparrows. (They're equally extinct.)C
Everyone complains about magpies, but magpies understand mutual respect, they are a fine upstanding bird. Cockatoos are like people who turn up uninvited for a party and trash the place, and then they screech in your ear.
We don't have them here but we have lots of every other bird. Mockingbirds routinely attack folks who get too close to their nests.
When I was 13 with a friend, (picture Tom and Huck) sitting with our legs hanging off the sea wall right here, [Link] we were chatting and talking when a HUGE bald eagle swooped down and pulled the largest mullet either of us had ever seen out of the Indian River. The eagle was about 9 feet in front of us trying to fly back up and over the trees with it - we were getting splashed by the fish thrashing and could FEEL the wingbeats !
Incredible.
RC
Sometimes we see a lyrebird in the forest. Every spring there are duck families walking around the neighbourhood.
When I lived in a small town in New South Wales, an old woman named Nellie kept a sulphur-crested cockatoo in a huge cage in her backyard. At night, she covered the cage with heavy rugs to keep the bird warm...and so it wouldn't wake the neighbourhood as soon as the sun rose. It didn't work. My bedroom overlooked her backyard, and I was awakened every morning at sunrise with the parrot yelling "Nellie, Nellie" in an imperious tone. Nellie, an early riser, would appear at her back door in a print dress and apron, brandishing a large, wooden, porridge-stirring spoon.
"You be quiet, or I'll beat your beak with a spoon!" she'd bellow and go back inside. The parrot would lower his crest and mumble something that sounded like "Beat your beak with a spoon!" back to her and be quiet for a minute or so. Then the whole performance would begin again, and be repeated as many times as the bird thought necessary until Nellie brought out a large metal bowl full of porridge.
A belly laugh is a great way to begin your day.
I was born in Bathurst NSW, though I moved to Dandenong in Victoria shortly after. I love Byron Bay, Valla Beach, And Tomingley, 50 k south of Dubbo (a small pub where I often stay on interstate travel).
Recently I looked at it on Google Earth and it looks like the row houses where we lived are still there. I've forgotten the name of the street, but they're now right across the street from some giant store or mall that I don't remember being there in the late 70s. That's where Nellie and her parrot lived.
Very happy to "meet" you virtually. It's a small world on the internet.
I live in Seattle now. The birds here are slightly less entertaining and in-your-face, but a few years ago we were adopted by a crow who still visits regularly and introduces her offspring to the food we provide. This year she seems to have given birth to more females, who don't squabble as much as in past years. They hang around in a flock of 5-6...until I put out cat food and twice as many crows arrive from nowhere, it seems. We are also visited several times a day by a flock of about 8 chickadees, a couple of junkos and a twohee. I didn't realize twohees were in the same family as New Zealand tuis. New Zealand tuis are all black except for a curly white feather under their beak. They greet the dawn with a beautiful, bell-like song. The twohees around here have red on their breasts and are otherwise brown. Their song is not so breathtakingly beautiful.
RC
Also, mockingbirds are called that because they say "mockingbird, mockingbird" (Actually, their category is likewise named; they're called 'mimic thrushes.')
RC
Got your link just now. Sounds like he's at an all you can eat barbecue restaurant: "more pork, more pork". I do love owls.
rc