Clever cockatoos in Sydney have figured out how to use drinking fountains
Embargoed until:
Publicly released:
2025-06-04 09:01
Sulfur-crested cockatoos in western Sydney have learned to use twist-handle water fountains to drink, according to Aussie researchers who set camera traps. The team recorded the clever cockies gripping the valve and lowering their weight to twist it with a success rate of 46%. While the behaviour hasn’t been recorded elsewhere, a bin-opening innovation pioneered by southern Sydney’s cockatoos spread across the city.
Journal/conference: Biology Letters
Research: Paper
Organisation/s: Western Sydney University, The Australian National University, University of Vienna, Austria
Funder: This study was funded through a Max Planck Society Group Leader Fellowship to LM, and by the Swiss State Secretariat for Education,
Research and Innovation (SERI) under contract number MB22.00056. During final analyses and write-up, B.C.K. has been funded by the Vienna
Science and Technology Fund (WWTF) [10.47379/VRG21011].
Media release
From: The Royal Society
Emergence of a novel drinking innovation in an urban population of sulphur-crested cockatoos, Cacatua galerita
The spread of behavioural innovations – solutions to novel problems- can be an adaptive response in fast-changing urban environments. Here, we describe a novel innovation in sulphur-crested cockatoos: the drinking-fountain innovation. Birds in western Sydney have learned how to open and drink from twist-handle public drinking fountains. Successful opening requires fine motor skills and coordinated sequences of actions with less than 50% of attempts being successful. While drinking-fountains are wide-spread, the behaviour seems to be localized, but persisting over at least two year, suggesting that this innovation has spread to from a new local tradition.
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