The male starts his performance by making a tool. With his huge hooked bill, he shears off a sizable stick from a tree, snips off the foliage, and then trims it to pencil size. This in itself is a wonder. Toolmaking of any kind is rare in the natural world and almost always occurs in the context of foraging. “This is the only species other than humans we know of that makes a tool for display or for musical purposes,” says Heinsohn. Holding his neatly fashioned drumstick in his left foot, the cockatoo beats it against his perch or the hollow trunk of a tree. When things really get going, he
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