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These Australian Cockatoos Learned to Operate Drinking Fountains With Their Feet to Quench Their Thirst
These Australian Cockatoos Learned to Operate Drinking Fountains With Their Feet to Quench Their Thirst
Birds in Sydney’s western suburbs have figured out how to get a sip from the fountains, even though they have access to nearby streams
Cockatoos in the western suburbs of Sydney, Australia, will wait in line for a taste of drinking fountain water.
Klump et al., Biology Letters, 2025
Australia’s suburban-dwelling cockatoos are adept at picking up new skills. The clever birds had already figured out how to open trash cans to access scraps in neighborhoods outside Sydney—and now, scientists have observed others using their claws to turn on drinking fountains.
Barbara Klump, a behavioral ecologist now at the University of Vienna, first noticed the cockatoos drinking from public water fountains west of Sydney in 2018. She thought someone had forgotten to turn off the water, but video footage from her research project showed a bird operating the handle with its foot.
“Then, of course, a million questions went through my mind,” she tells Gemma Conroy at the New York Times. “How the hell did it figure that out?”
Now, after monitoring cockatoos with wildlife cameras placed near one drinking fountain in Sydney’s western suburbs, Klump and her research team have confirmed that the birds regularly do this in local parks—something local wildlife experts also told her, per the New York Times.
Over 44 days, the team recorded nearly 14 hours of the cockatoos around the fountain. The birds made 525 drinking attempts, of which 41 percent were successful. The findings were published Wednesday in the journal Biology Letters.
Smart cockatoos use their beaks and claws to drink from water fountain
Watch on
Turning on the water fountains takes skill, so it makes sense that not all attempts worked out. To quench their thirst, the birds would place one foot on the fountain’s stem and the other on the spring-loaded handle, twisting it clockwise by leaning their body weight.
“It’s a bit of an awkward body position they have to hold, but it’s pretty impressive,” says Lucy Aplin, an ecologist at the Australian National University and a study co-author, to Peter de Kruijff at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
The researchers don’t yet understand why the birds go through the effort of maneuvering the fountains when there are easily accessible streams and creeks nearby. At the fountains, meanwhile, the cockatoos will wait for as long as ten minutes to get a turn to drink. “They appear to be quite willing to queue for a considerable amount of time,” Aplin says to Science News’ Jake Buehler.
One possibility is that the birds have gotten a taste for the purer water coming from the fountains, explains Klump to Jack Tamisiea at Science. Or, the birds may prefer the height of the fountain, as drinking from a ground source leaves them less able to see predators like eagles and falcons.
Spending time at the fountains could also be a form of social cohesion for the birds. “I think all three are possible,” Aplin says to Science News.
The cockatoos might also just enjoy turning on the fountains, adds Alice Auersperg, a cognitive biologist at the University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna, who was not involved in the research, to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
“If there is no super urgent need and you’re not dying of thirst, then why not do something you enjoy?” Klump says to the New York Times.
For now, the fountain drinking behavior hasn’t spread widely among Sydney’s cockatoos. The researchers looked through the citizen science platform Big City Birds, but they didn’t find any evidence of the behavior happening outside of the western suburbs. That’s unlike the species’ trash bin-opening habit, which has inconvenienced homeowners across at least 44 different suburbs.
Residents in Brisbane, Australia, however, have also spotted cockatoos drinking from water fountains, Alpin says to the New York Times. The birds don’t migrate, so the two populations couldn’t have learned the behavior from each other. This suggests there’s potential for the “independent invention of the behavior and local spread in other places,” Alpin adds.
Given their cleverness, it might not be long until more cockatoos are drinking from Australia’s fountains. Klump tells Science that she believes the birds are likely to come up with more ways to operate them, even fountains that turn on in a different way. “They’re so innovative and good at problem solving that they seem to eventually figure out a solution,” says Klump. “In a weird way, cockatoos constantly surprise me, but I’m also never that surprised.”
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#these #australian #cockatoos #learned #operate
These Australian Cockatoos Learned to Operate Drinking Fountains With Their Feet to Quench Their Thirst
These Australian Cockatoos Learned to Operate Drinking Fountains With Their Feet to Quench Their Thirst
Birds in Sydney’s western suburbs have figured out how to get a sip from the fountains, even though they have access to nearby streams
Cockatoos in the western suburbs of Sydney, Australia, will wait in line for a taste of drinking fountain water.
Klump et al., Biology Letters, 2025
Australia’s suburban-dwelling cockatoos are adept at picking up new skills. The clever birds had already figured out how to open trash cans to access scraps in neighborhoods outside Sydney—and now, scientists have observed others using their claws to turn on drinking fountains.
Barbara Klump, a behavioral ecologist now at the University of Vienna, first noticed the cockatoos drinking from public water fountains west of Sydney in 2018. She thought someone had forgotten to turn off the water, but video footage from her research project showed a bird operating the handle with its foot.
“Then, of course, a million questions went through my mind,” she tells Gemma Conroy at the New York Times. “How the hell did it figure that out?”
Now, after monitoring cockatoos with wildlife cameras placed near one drinking fountain in Sydney’s western suburbs, Klump and her research team have confirmed that the birds regularly do this in local parks—something local wildlife experts also told her, per the New York Times.
Over 44 days, the team recorded nearly 14 hours of the cockatoos around the fountain. The birds made 525 drinking attempts, of which 41 percent were successful. The findings were published Wednesday in the journal Biology Letters.
Smart cockatoos use their beaks and claws to drink from water fountain
Watch on
Turning on the water fountains takes skill, so it makes sense that not all attempts worked out. To quench their thirst, the birds would place one foot on the fountain’s stem and the other on the spring-loaded handle, twisting it clockwise by leaning their body weight.
“It’s a bit of an awkward body position they have to hold, but it’s pretty impressive,” says Lucy Aplin, an ecologist at the Australian National University and a study co-author, to Peter de Kruijff at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
The researchers don’t yet understand why the birds go through the effort of maneuvering the fountains when there are easily accessible streams and creeks nearby. At the fountains, meanwhile, the cockatoos will wait for as long as ten minutes to get a turn to drink. “They appear to be quite willing to queue for a considerable amount of time,” Aplin says to Science News’ Jake Buehler.
One possibility is that the birds have gotten a taste for the purer water coming from the fountains, explains Klump to Jack Tamisiea at Science. Or, the birds may prefer the height of the fountain, as drinking from a ground source leaves them less able to see predators like eagles and falcons.
Spending time at the fountains could also be a form of social cohesion for the birds. “I think all three are possible,” Aplin says to Science News.
The cockatoos might also just enjoy turning on the fountains, adds Alice Auersperg, a cognitive biologist at the University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna, who was not involved in the research, to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
“If there is no super urgent need and you’re not dying of thirst, then why not do something you enjoy?” Klump says to the New York Times.
For now, the fountain drinking behavior hasn’t spread widely among Sydney’s cockatoos. The researchers looked through the citizen science platform Big City Birds, but they didn’t find any evidence of the behavior happening outside of the western suburbs. That’s unlike the species’ trash bin-opening habit, which has inconvenienced homeowners across at least 44 different suburbs.
Residents in Brisbane, Australia, however, have also spotted cockatoos drinking from water fountains, Alpin says to the New York Times. The birds don’t migrate, so the two populations couldn’t have learned the behavior from each other. This suggests there’s potential for the “independent invention of the behavior and local spread in other places,” Alpin adds.
Given their cleverness, it might not be long until more cockatoos are drinking from Australia’s fountains. Klump tells Science that she believes the birds are likely to come up with more ways to operate them, even fountains that turn on in a different way. “They’re so innovative and good at problem solving that they seem to eventually figure out a solution,” says Klump. “In a weird way, cockatoos constantly surprise me, but I’m also never that surprised.”
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#these #australian #cockatoos #learned #operate
