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I live in Australia, in an area where Sulphur-Crested Cockatoos are common. Those things are amazingly intelligent, curious and fearless, traits which serve the
by bradrn 5y ago
I live in Australia, in an area where Sulphur-Crested Cockatoos are common. Those things are amazingly intelligent, curious and fearless, traits which serve them well in their continuous hunt for food (preferably ours). Three anecdotes:
• In high school, cockatoos always clustered around the lockers (which were outside, of course), so they could eat any food someone had foolishly left unattended. There was a story going round that the cockatoos had learnt to undo the zips on backpacks so they could get at the food. Admittedly, I never saw that with my own two eyes; however, I do know that they had learnt to puncture plastic bags so they could eat any food inside.
• Later on, in university, I had a habit of eating lunch outside in a grassy area. One day, a couple of cockatoos landed near me, looking at my food; this continued until about 8–10 cockatoos were clustered around me, all carefully eyeing my food. They then started to move forward — slowly, so as not to frighten me off — until they were all just a couple of centimetres away from me. Quite sensibly, I had by this time placed the lid on my container (though foolishly had not locked it in place) to stop them from eating it. I thus felt safe in moving away from all these nasty-looking birds — at which point, one of them reached out and tipped the container over, so the lid fell off and the food fell out! (I actually have a picture of the moment.) Of course I quickly gathered up the spilt food, but they did still get a bit to eat. It annoyed me, of course, but I am still impressed by the intelligence required to realise that this is the best way of getting food out of a box with a lid.
• At the same university, I once saw a cockatoo creep up to an unsuspecting man sitting on a bench and have a nibble of his pant leg! It’s unclear why it would do such a thing, but I’ve since come to the conclusion that it was simply curious to know what clothing tastes like.
Moral of the story: do not underestimate Australian wildlife, for it is cleverer than you would expect.
- pmoriarty 5y ago"at which point, one of them reached out and tipped the container over..." That reminds me of this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ag5JIlOE6as https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ag5JIlOE6as
- bradrn 5y agoHah, yes, that is exactly what our cockatoos are like!
- fian 5y agoNot cockatoos but I have had my hiking backpack opened by black currawongs in Tasmania: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_currawong#Feeding https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_currawong#Feeding My hiking buddy and I dropped our packs to climb Mount Ossa off the side of the Overland Track. We had been warned that the currawongs would try to get into our packs. So we zipped everything up tight, pulled the rain covers on and placed them face down (ie strap side to the sky). When we got back from we found the birds had pulled off my pack cover and managed to open the zip for the pocket on the top of my pack and pull out a bunch of stuff. The pack cover fit quite tight, so I was surprised the birds had the strength to pull it off. The zip needs to be pulled a just the right angle to move freely, so they must have known which way to pull the tag and been persistent at trying different angles until it opened. A quick search shows I'm not the only victim, the link below includes numerous matching stories with some photos of the aftermath: https://bushwalk.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=37&t=23012 https://bushwalk.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=37&t=23012
- bradrn 5y agoThanks for sharing! I always dismissed the ‘cockatoos opening zips’ thing as a myth… perhaps it was true after all.
- rex_lupi 5y agoWell, If a hungry mob of cockatoos start approaching me, I'd rather let them have my food.
- qart 5y agoThey will do that even when they are fully fed. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTh0m2GalRw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTh0m2GalRw The human here takes his cup around after they are done feeding. They still fight over it, probably because they are curious.
- unixhero 5y agoSidenote, I also did uni in Australia. The student visa expired and I went home. I really wish I had never left. Aussieland is the worlds best country by far.
- ehnto 5y agoMy childhood freind had a Sulfur-Crested Cockatoo that would follow him to school and just hang out until he was out for lunch. Sometimes he would find his way into the classroom, he was a super smart bird and knew how to get the windows open on some of the rooms. My mum helps with rescue birds sometimes and now has a Gullah, which for anyone familiar is a pink/white cockatoo very similar to a sulfur-crested cockatoo. He's so smart, knows tonnes of words. songs and situations, and knows that when the cat shows up he can refer to it as "Pus pus pus". The YouTube channel MakersMuse 3D printed some puzzles for wild birds to solve on his porch, it's really remarkable to watch them figure it out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5YyTHyaNpo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5YyTHyaNpo The Australian Magpie is also extremely intelligent, surprisingly they're not part of the Corvus family but they are very, very similar.
- bradrn 5y ago> The Australian Magpie is also extremely intelligent, surprisingly they're not part of the Corvus family but they are very, very similar. I agree — they’re more intelligent than cockatoos, though it’s not as obvious. At the same university, I once saw two young magpies lying on the ground. Were they hurt? No — they were play-fighting with each other, lying on the ground and using their feet to wrestle. An amazing sight.