![]() "Every 10 minutes, I'm recording who is here, and with this data we can build social networks, so basically we can find out who the cockies hang out with, who their friends are, who their social circles are," she said. So how, and why, did those individuals learn it?īy putting painted markers on a flock of cockies, Dr Klump takes detailed observations of their interactions with each other. Proving how behaviours like the bubbler drinking or bin opening spreads is part of the focus of Dr Klump's research.ĭr Klump said it became immediately obvious that not all cockies can open bins - it's a skill that a select few in the population actually have. "They can twist the handle by landing on it and using their body weight, and then drink from the water bubbler." Who's a clever bird? "In a couple of sites we've seen them almost entirely abandon drinking from rivers and lakes to move to drinking from water bubblers," she said. There's a nice example of this in Western Sydney. "Bin opening is just one example of the sorts of innovations that could spread in cockatoo society and help them adapt to urban environments," Dr Aplin said. Similarly, in the Sydney CBD they hollowed out a styrofoam building facade so much they could clomp around inside it and take shelter from inclement weather. Apparently once they figured out how delicious the foam felt beneath their sharp beaks, the whole area was raining styrofoam bits like snow. ![]() They also picked apart a new apartment building in the inner suburb of Rozelle in 2006, after the builders used rendered styrofoam for the building decorations. Have you caught cockatoos raiding your rubbish? Take the Clever Cockie bin-opening survey. ![]() The cockies' rooftop antics caused rain to leak into the herbarium vault where millions of dollars' worth of botanical specimens were kept. In 1988, the "sulphur-crested gang" caused some $50,000 worth of damage to the roof of the National Herbarium of New South Wales in Sydney's Royal Botanic Gardens. In some areas cockies will land on your hand or shoulders, John says. "It's annoying if it's your bins, but it's also an amazing example of behavioural adaptation."Īnd while bin cockies might be a relatively new phenomenon, it's clear that cockies have had a big impact on Australian cultural life for a very long time. Sulphur-crested cockatoos, like most parrot species, have demonstrated high levels of intelligence, which is most obvious in the ways they’ve adapted to live with humans. ![]()
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