The Bird Way: A New Look at How Birds Talk, Work, Play, Parent, and Think

by Jennifer Ackerman

Among Osvath’s more striking studies is one that appears to propel ravens into that exclusive clutch of animals—apes and scrub jays—that may use past experience to plan for the future. Osvath and a graduate student, Can Kabadayi, taught five ravens how to use a special tool—a stone of a specific weight and shape—to open a puzzle-like box containing a high-value treat. Though ravens are not tool users by nature, the birds were quick studies, requiring only one lesson to learn the trick—“a single observation of tool use by a non-tool-using species!” Osvath exclaims. When the experimenters took the box away and presented the ravens with a choice of objects, only one of which was the functional tool that could open the box, the birds picked the object that would be most useful to them if that treat-laden puzzle box reappeared in the future. They could wait as long as seventeen hours and would do so even when they were offered an inferior treat immediately; despite the temptation, the birds didn’t bite on the lesser alternative. Instead, they chose the special tool and saved it to secure the later, tastier reward.