Given their dramatic European decline, the little mob of house sparrows that monopolize our bird feeders must be something of a privilege. In all their brown tones, it is quite unfair to call them boring. Birds by the dozen are not a good way to speculate on an avian’s personality. However, the fluffy great tips lower down the tube can be a source of much-needed information.
It has been a few decades since research into octopus intelligence raised questions about personality unique patterns in thought, feeling, and behaviour in nonhuman species. Bird behaviour has been the subject of a new field of experimentation. While intelligence in crows is well-known, the personality of birds remains a mystery.
Some research has examined the balance between genetic drive, environmental influence, and the nature/nurture problem long known from studies of human behavior. For example, at the University of Memphis, corticosterone, a stress hormone, was highest in the blood of baby jays born to mothers who were least attentive. These levels were found to be the same as their fearfulness in tests that measure boldness, which was several months later.
A single gene, D4 (the dopamine receptor), is known to influence curiosity exploration and novelty in both animals and humans. It was the first choice for European research because of its aerobatics and skillful agility.
Many of this has taken place at Oxford University. This is a leading centre in ornithology. It also has Wythamwoods, a nearby laboratory equipped with leaves, which was left to the university in 1942. The 358 hectares of old, broadleaf woodland contained over 1,000 nest boxes. This allows for individual marking of offspring and parents, which can last up to 40 generations. This is the longest-running ecological study in the world.
The study of great tit personality, which is relatively new, has prompted parallel experiments at University College Cork and in the Netherlands.
Dr John Quinn is the UCC study’s leader. Quinn, a behavioral ecologist, has worked for four years with Wytham Woods’ great tits. Quinn moved to Cork as a professor in zoology and has been working on studies about the birds that nest along the Bandon Valley.
These results have shown that bolder, more proactive males select their partners earlier in winter and pay more attention to them before spring breeding begins. Shy males are less committed to building strong pairs bonds and spend more time flocking with other females.
49 great tits were captured in the wild and kept in an aviary at the UCC campus for further experiments. They were kept in plywood cages and given sunflower seeds, peanuts, and water with vitamin drops.
It has been studied how boldness affects bird survival and success in feeding. However, the Cork team wanted the birds to have more self-control so that they could be more flexible in foraging.
They were thinking of a classic behavioural test for delayed gratification in humans. Stanford University offered children the option of one marshmallow now or several marshmallows later. Most of them could not wait and took the single marshmallow. (They were, of all things, Americans.
Good self-control
Researchers at UCC taught the great tits how to find hidden food. They had to peck at a hole in a tube that they couldn’t see through. The birds were presented with a transparent tube filled with food. Many of them pounced on the plastic, while others showed great self-control and nipped around the side to feed.
Quinn, the researcher, suggests that such studies show that the tiny brain of the great Tit is capable of sophisticated cognitive abilities, many of which are similar to ours, and can help us make life- or death decisions. We still have to see how self-control in the wild is used.
It is not a guarantee that birds will survive if we know more about what helps them to survive. However, the more attention that all types of people pay to the natural world, the greater the chance of it being treated with respect.
I can’t tell the difference between the great tits and the peanut feeder from my window. To do that, I would need different rings for their legs, such as those made by the Cork researchers.
I want to preserve the memory of James Parsons Burkitt who was a Fermanagh county surveyor. He caught his garden robins in the 1920s and fitted them different-shaped rings (Burkitt wasn’t colour blind). This paper was published by British Birds and launched the technical revolution in colour ringing, which has remained the foundation of research ever since.
