Finally, to end your Saturday, here’s a video from Australia of a cockatoo shoving three bricks off of a garbage bin to get at the noms inside. It reminds me of a cat knocking stuff of a table, but the cats do it just to mess with people, while the cockatoo is creatively foraging:
We’ve recently moved into Helensburgh, NSW, Australia. A very beautiful area but we’ve got these clever/pesky Cockatoo’s [sic: the greengrocer’s apostrophe!]. Lots of people put rocks and bricks on their bins to keep them out but these birds have learnt to push the bricks off to get the rewards.
And typically the one who does all the hard work gets his food stolen. A metaphor for human society?
Interesting. I’ve seen raccoons do things like that, but never any birds.
Raccoons were constantly getting into my garbage, so I put two rocks that were probably five pounds each on the cover (my garbage can holder holds two cans). They kept removing them. I found heavier rocks. They kept removing those. Finally, I had to find a single rock that’s probably twenty pounds. They haven’t managed to remove the latest rock over the last few months, but I have a feeling that they’ve just been putting together an Ocean’s 11-type crew and they’ll make it happen as soon as they’ve finished training to execute their plan.
I put an unbelievably heavy container full of sand on the lid of our bin. My rule of thumb is: if my wife can’t get it open, then the raccoons *probably* can’t either.
Oh, and last summer I was having a dinner party on the deck and we had chocolate babka (among other things) on the table for dessert. Once we were all full and a few people got up to get in the pool, there were only three of us sitting at the table. A raccoon came running up out of nowhere, jumped on the table, grabbed the entire babka tin in his mouth, looked around at us as if to say, “what? you gonna stop me?” and then scurried off. We found the tin later. No babka remained.
Big brains! I was rooting for her/him.
Cockies are very smart birds. They are excellent dancers too.
A couple of years ago I was swearing at them because I had just had a pasture sowed only to have a huge flock of them land and start eating all the seed. I wonder if they watch tractors for free noms.
When I briefly moved to 5 acres of prior farmland in the country (southern Illinois), we were amazed to see flocks of seagulls descend on the neighboring fields to snack on fleeing field mice whenever the farmers harvested the taller crops.
These birds also have an altruistic streak:
Cockatoo and Malamute
They, like many other animals, have learned to live with the intrusion of humans into their environment. Birds are very smart animals and they do what they have to in order to survive. I just hope they are picking trash cans with food that is not overly harmful to them.
The more intelligent the animal, the more jerk the animal–eventually reaching the intelligence to destroy entire worlds.
!
Coincidentally, I just picked up a book today from the library – The Genius of Birds, by Jennifer Ackerman. Should be a fun read.
Reblogged this on The Logical Place.
What beautiful birds. They are like dressed up pretty raccoons. How lucky to have them wild. My bucket list wish is to visit Australia.
Jersey girl