Cockies are the pranksters of the bird world. They're smart and they think it's hilarious to mess with each other and anyone else. They also tear everything to pieces. So it's no surprise really that if any bird worked out how to operate a drinking fountain it'd be these hilarious little jerks.
I was visiting a place that takes in rescue animals, in this case they had a lot of birds.
In their typical speech to people about NOT keeping birds as pets they described some of the birds as "highly curious, the maturity of a human 5 year old, with an intense desire to be destructive".
My wife always joke about how parrots sound like a fun pet until you consider the phrase "Flying eternal toddlers, that cannot be diapered or potty-trained, with can-opener mouths."
On top of that, they have one tool, and it's a pair of boltcutters you can't take away. And the most clever of them have a good chance to outlive their owners.
I aspire to one day befriend a local murder of crows. Not to keep as pets or to make dependent on me, but maybe to bribe to clean up trash or steal quarters for me... or to defend my honor should the need arise.
We had a galah chewing our hosepipe the other day. I pointed and said "oi!" and the little scamp stopped, straightened up, looked me right in the eye and ... did it again.
Oh and not to forget the kookas. I heard a pop and noise like water a few weeks ago, and ran into our living room. Outside the main window there's that hose reel mounted on the wall that was spraying freely against the glass. A kookaburra had somehow pulled the hozelock end off and was taking a shower.
The most accurate representation of "Chaotic Neutral" - the cheeky bastards love stealing ANYTHING, and when there's nothing to steal they'll start ripping the rubber off your car door seals (or windshield wipers).
They are amazing birds, very deserving of the name "Clown of the Mountains".
When I lived in Australia we had a wooden full length porch (elevated), and where we lived in the hills outside Melbourne we could easily have 20-30 cockatoos hang out on it in the morning. They were mercifully not loud, but they absolutely destroyed the deck rails, and we had to replace them with heavier duty industrial plastic deck.
Or gangsters. We had a bird feeder, which we occasionally let run dry. A cockatoo got pissed with this, and concocted a scheme. When the feeder was empty he sat on the outside fridge and screeched. Once he got your attention, he made sure he was in full view and started destroying things . He only stopped when you put out more feed.
Amused by this I mentioned it at a neighborhood BBQ, and was greeted by a chorus of "oh yes, that happens at my place too". The guy holding the BBQ held up his BBQ tools and said: "See, brand new, this is the 3rd set". It was a neighborhood wide protection racket run by one bird.
Indeed. My father spent a lot of time bellowing at cockatoos that’d land in his fruit trees and tear them to pieces. He’d storm about and wave a broom at them until they took off. Classic old man yelling at clouds.
When he was on the other side of the house in the garage, they’d take fruit from the trees and drop them on the sloping driveway so they rolled down into the garage. Come play old fella.
a friend had two sulfer crested cockatoos and told me a story once.
He had two, a male and a female.
The male played industriously and was adept at doing all kinds of things, like untying zipties. (my friend added zipties to the cage as a toy). The female never touched any of them.
One day, my friend and his buddy were sitting there, and they mentioned this out loud. "She can't untie these things, I think she is just stupid compared to (the male)"
At which point, the female went over, untied the ziptie, spat it out and walked away. My friend and his buddy sat there open-mouthed.
I have fond childhood memories of having various pet gallah's/cockies. (yes in australia), I love the birds, they're fantastic pets.
but thats why I wont ever cage one up.. they clearly intelligent creatures that evolution has designed to be free flying animals. caging them up is beyond cruel.
Fun fact: all cockies are left-handed. I used to live in Canberra, where they're plentiful. I heard this 'fact' and was doubtful. Well, I've since seen hundreds of these birds eating acorns and, can confirm, every one a leftie.
This is the first time I've heard something like this I had no idea animals could be left handed too!
We used to have two budgies at home, but I never paid attention to which foot they preferred.
Now I'm honestly tempted to go watch a bunch of parrot videos just to see if this leftie thing shows up elsewhere too.
Fiddler crabs have one large claw and one small one. Usually which is bigger (right or left) is distributed 50/50. But there is one species - an Australian one - where only 1.4% are left-clawed.
A crab finding itself left-clawed means they fight differently and are generally less successful in fights, thus they live a more asocial life by choice and necessity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gelasimus_vomeris
The why part is the most interesting because seemingly
there no
obvious answer to it though I like the “pure taste” theory.
>So why did the cockatoos gravitate to drinking fountains in the first place, when plenty of other water sources such as puddles and creeks are available? Perhaps they have developed a taste for the purer fountain water, Klump says. Or the elevated fountain perch helps them spot approaching predators such as eagles and falcons.
It’s kinda comical. Like gee I wonder why they want to drink cool delicious clean water from a tap, not dank stagnant water from puddles. What a mystery for the ages!
Of course I understand that in the context of scientific research you can’t just assume, it’s just a bit absurd from the outside.
> Like gee I wonder why they want to drink cool delicious clean water from a tap, not dank stagnant water from puddles. What a mystery for the ages!
I mean, it could also not be about taste at all, I'm sure not all animals taste things the same, not even all humans have the same taste it seems, I can't stand fish and I love licorice, many are the opposite :)
Besides, many animals seem to enjoy just "different" things. When I'm out and about with my dogs, they love trying to drink water from puddles, even if I have a portable bowl with fresh water right next to it. Maybe it's more "interesting" or "flavorful"? Who knows...
It also seems like it would be more fun and mentally stimulating to operate a water fountain which is a reason to do it that I wouldn't put past a cockatoo given how smart they are.
Gonads have driven creatures to show they are more capable than others, whether knowledge or capability, for eternity. So much of our drive, just a drive to "do better" is driven by such.
Anyone who's spent long enough observing animals knows the reason... Animals are fucking lazy, why travel to find water when you can hang out, drink from an automatic machine and harass locals into feeding you and/or steal from them?
Watching cockatoos figure out stuff like this really makes me wonder have we been seriously underestimating bird intelligence all this time?
We tend to associate tool use with primates, but parrots, corvids, and kea keep proving us wrong in the smartest ways.
Honestly, maybe “avian cognition” deserves its own category of advanced problem solving.
There’s probably a lot we could learn from their behavior not just about animals, but about ourselves and the systems we build.
Avian cognition is so darn interesting. We associate the mammalian neocortex with "higher intelligence" (which is hand-wavy), but that structure arose after any common ancestor with birds.
The avian pallium is thought to be the analogue structure in birds, evolved separately.
Which is cool! Birds have separately evolved intelligence!
Even cooler, IMHO, is that invertebrates evolved intelligence (and almost identical eyes!) parallel to primate's and corvids'.
Squid, octopi, etc have cognitive abilities that sometimes overtake that of "intelligent" mammals or birds. Yet common ancestors are about as far away as is possible in animal kingdom.
(And also please remember this when ordering calamari next time ;)
I've recently gone down the rabbit hole of watching pet bird videos on YouTube. The wide range of behaviors is so fascinating. They can be so affectionate, playful, mischievous, and just plain goofy.
The African grey parrots are fascinating in particular, with their ability to connect words to more abstract concepts like counting.
I can't speak for the average person but I don't think I've encountered many intelligent people who don't also recognize bird intelligence. They have a greater neuron packing density than mammals and there's plenty footage online of corvids using tools.
Reminds me of my first Ibis encounter, in Brisbane. I was at an outdoor dining area in Southbank. There were signs warning people to beware of the ibis, and that the restaurant would not replace your food if it was taken by an ibis.
I sat down at a table, and there was a spray bottle with the condiments, promisingly-labeled "ibis spray". "Great", I thought to myself. "The ibis must hate whatever liquid they put in here". I was expecting maybe soapy water, or a lemon juice solution, or something.
I began eating, and a massive ibis landed next to me, and looked at me, threateningly. I wasn't scared. I held my ground, confidently reaching over to the ibis spray. I knew exactly how to fix this problem.
I aimed the ibis spray at the creature, and pulled the trigger.
What I now believe to be tap water shot out and struck the ibis, who did not even blink as it stared at me menacingly.
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In their typical speech to people about NOT keeping birds as pets they described some of the birds as "highly curious, the maturity of a human 5 year old, with an intense desire to be destructive".
We had a galah chewing our hosepipe the other day. I pointed and said "oi!" and the little scamp stopped, straightened up, looked me right in the eye and ... did it again.
Oh and not to forget the kookas. I heard a pop and noise like water a few weeks ago, and ran into our living room. Outside the main window there's that hose reel mounted on the wall that was spraying freely against the glass. A kookaburra had somehow pulled the hozelock end off and was taking a shower.
They are amazing birds, very deserving of the name "Clown of the Mountains".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZ4Y7svFgnQ
One group will entertain the tourists (in mountain huts in the back country) by putting on ammusing displays of acrobatics and hijinks
The other team use razor sharp claws and beaks to open thir packs and get to all the interesting stuff inside
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Amused by this I mentioned it at a neighborhood BBQ, and was greeted by a chorus of "oh yes, that happens at my place too". The guy holding the BBQ held up his BBQ tools and said: "See, brand new, this is the 3rd set". It was a neighborhood wide protection racket run by one bird.
When he was on the other side of the house in the garage, they’d take fruit from the trees and drop them on the sloping driveway so they rolled down into the garage. Come play old fella.
He had two, a male and a female.
The male played industriously and was adept at doing all kinds of things, like untying zipties. (my friend added zipties to the cage as a toy). The female never touched any of them.
One day, my friend and his buddy were sitting there, and they mentioned this out loud. "She can't untie these things, I think she is just stupid compared to (the male)"
At which point, the female went over, untied the ziptie, spat it out and walked away. My friend and his buddy sat there open-mouthed.
but thats why I wont ever cage one up.. they clearly intelligent creatures that evolution has designed to be free flying animals. caging them up is beyond cruel.
A crab finding itself left-clawed means they fight differently and are generally less successful in fights, thus they live a more asocial life by choice and necessity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gelasimus_vomeris
Update: see comment below. Studies are not conclusive.
>So why did the cockatoos gravitate to drinking fountains in the first place, when plenty of other water sources such as puddles and creeks are available? Perhaps they have developed a taste for the purer fountain water, Klump says. Or the elevated fountain perch helps them spot approaching predators such as eagles and falcons.
Of course I understand that in the context of scientific research you can’t just assume, it’s just a bit absurd from the outside.
Tell that to my cats. If they got the chance they will always prefer to drink from puddles of muddy rainwater instead of the clean water we give them.
I mean, it could also not be about taste at all, I'm sure not all animals taste things the same, not even all humans have the same taste it seems, I can't stand fish and I love licorice, many are the opposite :)
Besides, many animals seem to enjoy just "different" things. When I'm out and about with my dogs, they love trying to drink water from puddles, even if I have a portable bowl with fresh water right next to it. Maybe it's more "interesting" or "flavorful"? Who knows...
Some species of birds, like cockatoos, like puzzles. They like to figure things out.
As a bird owner, they get bored. They like to play like dogs, but in 3d. They also have musical rhythm.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kea#Cognitive_abilities
https://youtu.be/Yj718A7_s4A?si=yaiv4sZiY4xmzK0C. -- Kea doing probabilities and inferring from (biased) experiments
The avian pallium is thought to be the analogue structure in birds, evolved separately.
Which is cool! Birds have separately evolved intelligence!
Squid, octopi, etc have cognitive abilities that sometimes overtake that of "intelligent" mammals or birds. Yet common ancestors are about as far away as is possible in animal kingdom.
(And also please remember this when ordering calamari next time ;)
Edit: I very much enjoyed this bestseller popular science book on invertebrates intelligence: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Other_Minds%3A_The_Octopus%2C_...
A mini brain in each arm, orchestrated by the main brain.
The African grey parrots are fascinating in particular, with their ability to connect words to more abstract concepts like counting.
another question that I keep asking myself is: are we seriously overestimating human intelligence all this time?
The prevailing wisdom has been that a fully developed cockatoo has roughly the intelligence of a 3 year old.
A 3 year old figuring out how to use a drinking fountain wouldn't be world-breaking science, and I don't think this is either.
We have proven that they don't understand language and can simply mimic sounds. I don't think it's as deep as you are hoping.
I sat down at a table, and there was a spray bottle with the condiments, promisingly-labeled "ibis spray". "Great", I thought to myself. "The ibis must hate whatever liquid they put in here". I was expecting maybe soapy water, or a lemon juice solution, or something.
I began eating, and a massive ibis landed next to me, and looked at me, threateningly. I wasn't scared. I held my ground, confidently reaching over to the ibis spray. I knew exactly how to fix this problem.
I aimed the ibis spray at the creature, and pulled the trigger.
What I now believe to be tap water shot out and struck the ibis, who did not even blink as it stared at me menacingly.
"Oh shit", I thought.