I\u2019ve been busy grading mid-term exams so learning is on my mind.\u00a0 A lot of learning goes on in the bird world too.<\/p>\n
The ability to sing has a strong component of learning in most birds.\u00a0 Although a bird raised in isolation will attempt to sing, its song will be a poor rendition of the song that its father sang to attract its mother.<\/p>\n
A number of birds are able mimics.\u00a0 A parrot can be taught to say \u201cPolly, want a cracker\u201d and any number of other phrases.\u00a0\u00a0 A Northern Mockingbird can mimic as many as 30 other species of coexisting birds.\u00a0 The Marsh Warbler in Britain mimics 99 European species and 133 African species that it coexists with on its wintering grounds.\u00a0 A Lyrebird in Australia over 19 years learned to imitate barnyard sounds including pig squeals, a chain rattling, a cross-cut saw, and a howling dog, along with most calls and songs of the local birds! A Crested Lark in Germany learned the whistled commands given to sheepdogs (“Run ahead”, “Fast”, “Halt” and “Come here\u201d).\u00a0 When taped and played back to sheep dogs, these calls were obeyed by the dogs.<\/p>\n
Birds learn to solve complex problems more readily than many mammals in laboratory experiments.\u00a0 One experiment involved a four-feet long board with a narrow slit in the middle.\u00a0 A test animal was placed on one side of the board.\u00a0 Two bowls were placed on the other side of the slit, visible to the test animal.\u00a0 One bowl had food and the other was empty. The test animal watched as one bowl was moved to the far left and one to the far right, both out of sight of the test animal.\u00a0 The animal was then allowed to walk around to try to find the food.\u00a0 Dogs and crows quickly learn to go around the side nearest the food. Cats, rabbits and chickens never learn to solve the problem.<\/p>\n
Learning to count is difficult for most mammals.\u00a0 It took 21,000 trials to get a monkey to learn to tell the difference between a two-note sound and a three-note sound.\u00a0 Rats never learned to distinguish the two sounds.\u00a0 Birds easily learn to tell the difference.\u00a0 Parakeets and ravens can be taught to count to seven.<\/p>\n
Birds engage in insight learning, a complex mode of learning.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0A bird is able to learn by observation and imitation of others. Blue Jays can learn to tell edible from inedible caterpillars by watching the reaction of other Blue Jays when they attempt to eat a caterpillar.<\/p>\n
Another nice example is described for Great Tits (a relative of our chickadees) in England.\u00a0 In the 1950\u2019s, Great Tits learned to tear the cardboard caps of milk bottles so they could drink the cream.\u00a0 This innovative behavior was quickly passed on to other members of the species.\u00a0 Milk companies had to replace the cardboard caps with stronger metal caps to keep the Great Tits out.<\/p>\n
Young birds must learn how to capture food.\u00a0 Young terns, pelicans and herons miss the fish they are pursuing far more frequently than adults.\u00a0 In North Carolina, I have observed a number of young Northern Gannets (but no adults) dead on the beach.\u00a0 One possible explanation is that these young birds were diving into shallow water and breaking their necks.\u00a0 A tough lesson to learn!<\/p>\n
Some birds have devised ways to use tools to feed.\u00a0 The Woodpecker Finch of the Galapagos Islands uses a stick or cactus spine held in its bill to pry insects from crevices.\u00a0 Egyptian Vultures have learned to crack ostrich eggs using stones.\u00a0 Green Herons are clever fishers, using pieces of bread as fishing bait.\u00a0 A Green Heron will drop bread into still water and wait for fish to gather which it then captures by spearing with its bill.\u00a0 If currents carry off the bait, the heron will retrieve the bait and use it again.<\/p>\n
[First published on October 29, 2013]<\/p>\n\n
I\u2019ve been busy grading mid-term exams so learning is on my mind.\u00a0 A lot of learning goes on in the bird world too. The ability to sing has a strong component of learning in most birds.\u00a0 Although a bird raised in isolation will attempt to sing, its song will be a poor rendition of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":146,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"yes","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4625],"tags":[],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/mainebirds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/625"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/mainebirds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/mainebirds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/mainebirds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/146"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/mainebirds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=625"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/mainebirds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/625\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":626,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/mainebirds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/625\/revisions\/626"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/mainebirds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/mainebirds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/mainebirds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}