Cockatoos Learn How to Drink from Water Fountains

On Jun 9, Dr. Krump the researcher found clever cockatoos have figured out how to drink from water fountains in Sydney, Australia.

Most birds go for ease when looking for drinking water. But the sulfur-crested cockatoos in Australia mostly seem to quench their thirst in a more complex way. In the city, some of the birds have figured out how to use public drinking fountains. It is weird how cockatoos perform a lot of effort trying to drink water from the fountains, even if there is a lot of river water nearby. Interestingly, they do not use it on hot days. “These birds do seem to be thriving in city settings” said Kevin an ecologist at Michigan State University who was not involved in the paper. Dr. Klump saw the cockatoos drinking from the bubblers while doing field research in another unrelated project in 2018. She thought someone had forgotten to close it out. She looked at a footage and noticed it was a bird. The cockatoos tried to drink from the fountain 500 times for 44 days. It seems only sometimes the birds tried to use the bubblers. Their motor skills, attraction to novelty, and ability to watch and learn, all work together to make them succeed to drink the water by themselves. In the end, the scientists hope to continue studying this behavior further.