New Scientist - UK (2022-05-21)

14 | New Scientist | 21 May 2022

Field notes Animal cognition

Last days of the home for clever birds A Cambridge lab that

has made seminal discoveries on animal intelligence is facing

closure as funding dries up, reports Alison George

BEHIND a thatched pub in

the village of Madingley near

Cambridge, UK, is a set of aviaries

that is home to 25 jays and seven

rooks. For Nicola Clayton, who set

up the facility 22 years ago, these

birds offer a unique window into

the minds of other creatures. But

not, perhaps, for much longer.

Clayton’s Comparative

Cognition Lab – or, as she dubs

it, the corvid palace – is set to

close in July due to a depressing

confluence of circumstances.

“It is so sad that this is happening

now, especially given there are

so many unanswered questions,”

says Clayton.

The facility at the University

of Cambridge was financed by a

grant from the European Research

Council, and the team applied

unsuccessfully to renew it

during the Brexit negotiations –

a time of great uncertainty for

research funding.

On top of this, the economic

pressures of the covid-

pandemic mean that the £75,

per year it takes to run the aviaries

just isn’t available. “Brexit was

certainly a contributing factor,

and it was not helped by the

pandemic,” says Clayton, though

she is still holding out hope that

a benefactor can be found at the

eleventh hour.

The Madingley site has a long

pedigree in the field of animal

behaviour: for example, it was

where primatologist Jane Goodall

was based for her PhD on

chimpanzees in the 1960s.

In the years since the corvid

lab was founded, studies here

have revealed how these birds –

members of the crow family – can

perform feats once thought to be

the domain of only humans or

great apes, including planning

for the future and understanding

the minds of others.

Here, it was discovered that

rooks (Corvus frugilegus) can use

tools, and even work cooperatively

to pull strings to obtain a treat.

Research at the lab has also shown

that corvids engage in mental

time travel, showing an ability

to remember the past and use

this to plan for the future.

Corvids can recall which other

birds were watching when they

hid food in caches, then use this

experience to imagine and plan

how to protect their caches for

future recovery.

One of the stars of the

Madingley facility, a Eurasian jay

(Garrulus glandarius) called Jaylo,

flies over to take a prized treat,

a waxworm, from my hand. She

was part of a 2021 study led by

Elias Garcia-Pelegrin, also at

the University of Cambridge,

that used magic tricks to probe

the perceptions and expectations

of jays. “It is another way to test

for their abilities in the absence

of language,” says Clayton.

These studies are part of a

renaissance in our understanding

of the cognition of other animals,

with sophisticated mental abilities

being discovered not only in rooks

and jays, but also other birds, such

as parrots, plus cephalopods like

octopuses and squid. But there

is still much more to learn.

Promising avenues

On my visit to the corvid palace,

I also meet the rooks that are taking

part in a groundbreaking study

into how these birds understand

language, something that is little

known in non-mammalian

animals. Francesca Cornero has

already trained an 18-year-old

rook named Leo plus two

others to respond to different

commands – speak, come here

and wait – and is now teasing apart

whether they are responding to

the words themselves or to other

inadvertent cues, such as eye

gaze or body language.

Clayton also wants to

explore something called

source memory – the ability

to remember how one came to

know something, for example

whether a bird found out about

the cache made by another bird

due to a smell or a sound.

Another promising avenue

is embodied cognition, in which

our bodies influence the way we

think about the world. “Both

humans and apes have hands,

and this influences the way

we see the world, so how is

embodied cognition different

for birds?” says Clayton.

Sadly, these studies are unlikely

to happen. Not here, anyway.

What will happen to the

birds? It looks like the rooks

might have a home at another

lab in Strasbourg, France, so the

research on them can continue.

The younger jays might be

released into the wild and are

being trained accordingly. Clayton

is hopeful that homes can be

found for the older ones – though

locating people with sufficient

space available for suitably large

aviaries is challenging.

Clayton has already begun

to branch out to work on the

cognitive abilities of cephalopods,

but she is heartbroken that the

long-term relationships she has

built up with these hand-raised

birds are coming to an end.

“If it was rats or pigeons or

mice, it would be so much easier

because there would be a lot of

other facilities where they could

be housed, and also you could

easily get new ones,” she says.

“But for these really clever birds

that live a long time, if it closes

down, that’s it.”  ❚

Rooks have been trained

to respond to verbal

commands

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News

“ Brexit was a contributing
factor in the loss of
funding, and it was not
helped by the pandemic”