[obol] Article on Western Scrub-Jay food caching behavior

[david tracy]

An interesting study on Western Scrub-Jay from researchers at  
Cambridge University.   The abstract can be found here:

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v445/n7130/abs/nature05575.html

If you're not a subscriber, you can tune into the podcast for free  
and hear an interview with one of the authors.  The researchers would  
selectively feed the birds breakfast in only one "room" (apparently  
they were using captive birds?) first thing in the morning.  On other  
mornings they would be fed normally in another room.  When given an  
excess of food and the opportunity to roam freely among the different  
rooms, they would preferentially stash food in the room where they  
were not fed on past mornings, thus planning for the future based on  
historical events.  Doesn't exactly explain why they would stick  
pebbles under roof shingles or other items in weird places but still  
interesting.

The podcast can be downloaded at no charge here:  http:// 
www.nature.com/nature/podcast/index.html

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can download the podcast and use a free media player to listen.



Dave








david tracy
davect at bendnet.com