Cockatoos start sipping from Sydney’s drinking fountains after mastering series of complex moves

Nature is amazing.

Dr John Martin, a senior ecologist at Ecosure and co-author of the study, said they stumbled on the complex behaviour at a twist-handle-operated bubbler located in a western Sydney sports field while surveying cockatoo foraging habits…. Presumably the birds first learned what to do by watching people, Martin said. “Eventually one of them got it, and then the others were like, ‘ah, this is fun’.” The cockatoos learned by watching others and then trying themselves, he said….There seemed to be an element of fun, he said. “The flock would come in, and they’d all be foraging and drinking – having a bit of a relax and a bit of a laugh.”

The “drinking fountain innovation” – which has persisted at least two years – is the second documented urban adaptation to spread across Sydney’s sulphur-crested cockatoo populations. It followed the “bin-opening innovation”, where cockatoos figured out how to use their beaks and feet to lift rubbish bin lids, a behaviour that soon spread throughout Sydney’s southern suburbs. —Guardian