Crafty cockatoos learn to use public drinking fountains

Cockatoos in Sydney, Australia, have learned to use public water fountains by twisting a handle, despite how difficult they are for birds to operate. It seems to be a behaviour they copy from each other.

Sulphur-crested cockatoos (Cacatua galerita) have already learned how to open waste bins in eastern Sydney, leading to a battle of wits as humans come up with ways to keep their bins closed and the cockatoos again work out how to open them.

After rangers reported the same type of cockatoos using drinking fountains in western Sydney, Lucy Aplin at the Australian National University and her colleagues temporarily colour-marked 24 cockatoos – representing around a fifth of the local population – and filmed what happened at several drinking fountains, or bubblers as they are known in Australia.

Over 44 days, cockatoos made 525 attempts to use one particularly popular fountain. Of these, 105 attempts were by 17 of the 24 marked birds. This suggests that about 70 per cent of the population of more than 100 birds tried to use the fountain, say the researchers.

In natural environments, cockatoos drink from ponds or water collected in tree hollows near their roost, but the birds seem to be using the fountains instead of those sources, says Aplin. “They are using it in the morning and in the evening, which is when we know cockatoos basically do their daily drinking – after they get up and before they go to bed.”

The researchers saw queues of more than 10 birds waiting their turn along a fence by one bubbler, although dominant birds did jump the queue.

Only 41 per cent of observed attempts ended in success – but drinking from the fountains is no mean feat for a bird, says Aplin.

“The birds have to coordinate their body in quite a complex way,” she says. “They have to have one foot on the stem of the drinking fountain and then the handle has to be twisted and held down. So, the birds will twist it with their other foot. But they have to lean their body to use their weight because they don’t have enough strength just in their foot to keep the handle turned. They then turn their head back to get to the flow of water, while keeping their body weight over the handle.”

She thinks the birds are copying the behaviour from each other after one individual or a few individuals worked out how to do it.

“This is a clear example of culture – novel behaviours that are socially transmitted – which might surprise many people who think culture is a uniquely human feature,” says Christina Zdenek at the University of Queensland, Australia. “Their ability to innovate to access new food and water resources is among the most impressive across the tree of life.”

Why are the cockatoos doing it? Aplin suggests it could be that the water tastes better than muddy pond water, or that they feel safer from predators at these bubblers. Alternatively, it may just be a fad driven by the birds’ thirst for innovation.