Clever Bird

[Bruce Taylor]

[MiddleAgesMan]

Looks a lot like the green herons that nest here. I've watched them raise their chicks for three seasons now. Most recently I saw about 15 chicks fledge from 4 or 5 nests. They come for my old koi pond where I've seen this same behavior. They will use most anything for bait including small twigs.

[Bruce Taylor]

They come for my old koi pond where I've seen this same behavior. They will use most anything for bait including small twigs.

Fascinating. I often see green herons on our river, but I've never seen them do this!

[John of Phoenix]

It's amazing that they learned that behavior in the first place, but to teach it to the youngsters is really interesting.

[Old Dryfoot]

Fantastic!

I've said this before and I'll say it again here. Intelligence is not an exclusively human trait.

[Donn]

How cool is that?! Not only using a tool, but using bait as a tool. Remarkable.

[Ian McColgin]

Way cool. There's so much about intelligence we don't get yet.

[John Smith]

Now being called a bird brain is a compliment.

[Ian McColgin]

At least for fishermen.

[David W Pratt]

I would guess it was invented by a young bird, and then spread.

[wardd]

I have a duck that is not the brightest duck in the row

i put 2 grapes in his bowl, one landed in the middle and he had no problem getting that one

one fell against the side of the bowl and he would put his bill down on the outside of the bowl and try to move it forward to get the grape, he tried this several times before giving up

i felt sorry for the guy and tossed the grape in his tub, he enjoys dunking for grapes

[John Smith]

Over the years My family has had many, many pets. We had one cat who figured out how to open the front door: the old thum latch and he learned he could lean down on the thumb latch and open the door. Would not learn to close it. We had another cat who used the toilet. Didn't flush, but still.

And we had a wild blue jay we rescued and he would fly in and out of the open kitchen window and every day at noon would stand in the kitchen sink and chirp until we turned the water on so he could take a shower.

Later we had two large does that were getting out of a yard enclosed with a 6' fence. One day we just pretended to leave and watched them. They jumped over the fence.

[MiddleAgesMan]

I have made all of my bird albums public including green heron albums for the past three years. Go here to see them: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?...8796364&type=3

There is an album devoted to the eastern screech owls that grew up here a couple years ago. It, too, is public.

I don't know how easy it is to see other albums so here is one showing the chicks that grew up here this year: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?...8796364&type=3

The album from last year: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?...8796364&type=3

Let me know if you can't find the screech owl album or can't access it.

[Bruce Taylor]

Let me know if you can't find the screech owl album or can't access it.[/B]

None of the Facebook links worked, for me. I get "This content is currently unavailable The page you requested cannot be displayed right now. It may be temporarily unavailable, the link you clicked on may have expired, or you may not have permission to view this page."

[L.W. Baxter]

Wow, I've never seen that before.

Much ado has been made over chimps using sticks to fish for termites. This bird's method of fishing seems more complex, particularly pulling the bait back each time to keep it from being eaten.

[Old Dryfoot]

Not only do chimps use sticks to fish for termites, they have also been found to use spears for hunting and also utilizing caves. No primitive drawings have been reported... yet.

Spear-wielding chimps snack on skewered bushbabies

17:00 22 February 2007 by Rowan Hooper
For similar stories, visit the Human Evolution Topic Guide

In a revelation that destroys yet another cherished notion of human uniqueness, wild chimpanzees have been seen living in caves and hunting bushbabies with spears. It is the first time an animal has been seen using a tool to hunt a vertebrate.

Many chimpanzees trim twigs to use for ant-dipping and termite-fishing. But a population of savannah chimps (Pan troglodytes verus) living in the Fongoli area of south-east Senegal have been seen making spears from strong sticks that they sharpen with their teeth. The average spear length is 63 centimetres (25 inches), says Jill Pruetz at Iowa State University in Ames, US, who observed the behaviour with Paco Bertolani, of the University of Cambridge, UK.

And the method of procuring food with these tools is not simply extractive, as it is when harvesting insects. It is far more aggressive. They use the spears to hunt one of the cutest primates in Africa: bushbabies (Galago senegalensis).

Bushbabies are nocturnal and curl up in hollows in trees during the day. If disturbed during their slumbers - if their nest cavity is broken open, for example - they rapidly scamper away. It appears that the chimps have learnt a grisly method of slowing them down.


Take a look at the chimps in action, in these three videos

Cave life

Chimps were observed thrusting their spears into hollow trunks and branches with enough force to injure anything inside the holes, Pruetz's research team says. The chimps used a "power grip" and made multiple downward stabs - much the same way as a human might wield a dagger.

Ten different chimps in the population were observed to perform this behaviour in 22 bouts. In one case the researchers saw a chimp remove a dead bush baby and eat it. Here is the chimp enjoying his grisly meal, and cleaning his small spear (5MB, Requires QuickTime).

And, in what is thought to be another first for chimps, the Fongoli population have taken up aspects of cave living. They use the the shady interiors for socialising, taking siestas and picnicking, the researchers say. Pruetz jokes that she would not be surprised if the chimps began making cave drawings.

The Fongoli chimps inhabit a mosaic savannah - patches of grass and woodland - where there are no red colobus monkeys. The absence of these monkeys, which are the favoured prey of several other chimp populations, may explain the Fongoli chimps' unique spear-hunting behaviour.

"Given the lack of opportunity, Fongoli chimps have come up with a way to get around the problem of how to get protein in their particular environment...using tools to hunt," says Pruetz.
Secret snacks

Intriguingly, the behaviour is mostly confined to females and immature chimps. Adults hunt and eat green monkeys, but males have priority over access to the meat. Pruetz suggests that Fongoli juveniles and females get around this by exploiting a niche that is relatively ignored by adult males - and spearing little bushbaby snacks for themselves.

"Immatures and females are innovative in solving the problem of feeding competition," she says.

Chimps regularly seem to be discovered doing things once thought unique to humans (see Stone Age chimps were handy with a hammer). "Back to the drawing board again in terms of trying to define how humans are special," says Pruetz.

Journal reference: Current Biology, DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2006.12.042

[BatmanStrikesBack]

That bird is a genius!! I can't believe how smart they are... It truly is shocking. Never underestimate the intellect of an animal I suppose.

[Vince Brennan]

How cool is that?! Not only using a tool, but using bait as a tool. Remarkable.

+1, but it's the patience that particularly impressed me. I may be incorrect, but it seems the bird's actually letting the fish get a bit of the bait each time and waiting until the fish no longer perceives a danger, comes too close and becomes lunch.

[Vince Brennan]

[MiddleAgesMan]

None of the Facebook links worked, for me. I get "This content is currently unavailable The page you requested cannot be displayed right now. It may be temporarily unavailable, the link you clicked on may have expired, or you may not have permission to view this page."

I'm not a techie so I don't know what is wrong. The albums are public which I take to mean anyone can see them, even non-Facebook users. Maybe that's a bad assumption.

[Gerarddm]

Give 'em ten million years and they'll be flying starships. ;-)

[Bruce Taylor]

I'm not a techie so I don't know what is wrong. The albums are public which I take to mean anyone can see them, even non-Facebook users. Maybe that's a bad assumption.

Evidently, you have to be logged in on Facebook to see 'em...I signed in, and there were the herons.