Magpies have been on my radar ever since I took my first animal cognition class. My professor was a big fan of these feathered, and had studied them at length. Ever since then I have looked at bird brains in a whole new light. So now, after weeks of stalling I have finally decided to write about a fascinating study I found on the brilliant minds of these unsuspecting avian species.
More Than Just a Feathered Menace
Australian magpies are very common in their corner of the world, and they are found throughout suburban areas. In fact they are widely known for being a bother, they often swoop down like hooligans on cyclists, tourists, and locals alike. Every spring, these black and white feathered maniacs turn into tiny flying missiles in order to protect their nests. Naturally, the magpies managed to get themselves a bad wrap but one study from the LA Trobe university in Melbourne has shed new light on these streetwise birds.
Behind their beady eyes sits an uncanny ability for problem solving. A skill that was reserved for crows, parrots, and primates until the team in Melbourne did some digging. The researches hand an ingenuous yet simple set up, revolving around a transparent box with a dish of food inside. Attached to the dish was a piece of string poking out through a small hole, pull the string and the birds could pull the food close enough to be reached. Seems simple right? But for a species with a much smaller brain then our own it is an impressive task to complete.
A String, a Snack, and a Test
Now, here is the part I found absolutely fascinating. The clever researchers in Melbourne tested 11 wild free ranging magpies! For those of you who aren’t tuned into the research of animal cognition, investing the problem solving skills of wild animals is incredibly hard to do. This is because most animals don’t like to interact with something that is human made and alien to them. Luckly, magpies are quite used to living within close proximity to people, but still testing outside of a lab is real feat!
Now that I have gushed, let’s talk about how the birds were tested. The magpies were presented with different versions of the string pulling task:
- A long string that needed several pulls to bring the reward close.
- A short string where one good tug would do the job.
- And, for the final challenge: two side-by-side strings. One intact string that would deliver the food when pulled, and one string cut in half that wouldn’t work.
Now, before we get too excited about these avian Einsteins, here is where things got tricky for the Melbourne researchers. At first, not a single magpie managed to solve the task on their very first try. Not one! It’s disappointing, I know. But, actually it’s something I love because it makes what happened next even better.
Learning the Ropes
When the researchers switched to the slightly easier short string task, the magpies managed to solve the problem, with 5 out of the 11 starting to learn the gist of the task. Even better, once those five birds got a handle of how the short string task worked, 4 of them went back to the long string task and solved it. Showing that they learned the task enough to problem solve a harder one. This sort of learning from experience is fascinating, especially considering how they applied the learned knowledge to a trickier task.
But hold your horses, the hardest task was yet to come, the broken string challenge. In this task the birds had to figure out not only that pulling a string would grant a rewards, but also that only one string would work. Could magpies tell the difference?
Okay so lets get into it with some cold hard stats. 3 out the 5 crows who had learned the task and were ‘trained’ to pull string had cracked the code. But there was a catch, it took them between 54 and 77 attempts to achieve the task to the researchers standards. This shows that the crows had to learn over time by trial and error, and weren’t instantly amazing at it. And that’s okay. Because even trial-and-error is a kind of intelligence, and it hints at a mental flexibility we don’t always credit animals like magpies for having.
Here is another example of a clever crow using string pulling for a tasty treat. Take a look!
Why This Matters (And Why I Love It)
The reason I love this study so much is because it was performed on wild individuals, which is rare to find in a lot of research. It is messy, unpredictable, and wonderfully real. Usually it is easy to underestimate the everyday wildlife we find in suburban settings and write them off as pests. But the animals we find in our back gardens can be just as fascinating as the species in the remote corners of the world. It takes a lot to live within our human shaped world, either by picking through our litter for food, or scavenging for a safe place to nest. This study reminds me that there is value in all of our species, and they all have something unique to offer. So the next time you see a magpie, watch it. Take note of how it moves, how it interacts with its world, how it tangle the obstacles it faces. Behind those beady eyes and flashy feathers there might just be a mind at work.
Love from,
An Earth Nerd
Create Your Own Website With Webador