A team from Oxford University, led by John Firth, conducted a study which demonstrated that — at least in the case of great tits, the species of bird being examined — love can be a powerful thing. While it is already known that great tits, along with eagles, swans, parrots, geese, and cranes, are monogamous, and mate for life, this study showed just how far they would go, with the great tits choosing to be with their mate over obtaining food.
According to Tech Times, the scientists set up a test site with automated bird-feeding stations. These machines had been designed to respond only to one of two radio frequency tags which all the birds had. Males and females had different tags, and each machine was set up to allow only the males or only females. The results showed that the birds would rather remain with their mates than go and get food separately.
These results demonstrate the importance of social relationships for the expression, and consequences, of individual behavior.
Some bird pairs were even able to pool their mental resources and fool the machines. Discovery News reported that some birds figured out that the machines stayed open for two seconds after the bird with the appropriate tag had been fed. One bird would open the machine, and its mate would jump in and eat as much as possible before jumping back out again.
This isn’t the only way in which bird pairs work together, either. Each bird would associate with the other bird’s flock, even when they wouldn’t normally make such a connection, and begin to form social bonds with them. Firth and his colleagues wrote in their paper that “These results demonstrate the importance of social relationships for the expression, and consequences, of individual behavior.”
For anyone wishing to read in more detail on this subject, the study is published in the journal Current Biology.
