| Publication Type: | Journal Article |
| Year of Publication: | 1995 |
| Authors: | Heinrich, B |
| Journal: | Animal Behaviour |
| Volume: | 50 |
| Issue: | 3 |
| Date Published: | 1995 |
| ISBN Number: | 0003-3472 |
| Keywords: | Corvidae, Corvus, Corvus corax |
| Abstract: | The well-known attraction of corvid birds ot bright, shiny, inanimate objects appears to be without direct or immediate utility. Whether this attraction is an exploratory behaviour related to food finding was tested. All objects that four ravens contracted in a semi-controlled but relatively natural forest environment during 38 (usually daily) 30-min sessions were recorded, starting when they left the nest. During the first 10 sessions (up to 15 days post-fledging), the young birds contracted 980 natural objects of 95 kinds or categories that were not added into their environment. In the 28 subsequent sessions, 44 novel item categories were introduced sequentially into their environment and the birds' attraction to these items was compared to previously seen (background) items and to seveal criteria (edible/inedible, conspicuous/cryptic). The juvenile birds always preferentially chose items that they had never seen before, from 42 to 24 000 times above previously contracted items. Attraction depended on the novelty of the item, without relevance to either its palatability or its shininess or conspicuousness. Novel inedible items, however, were soon treated as background items regardless of their conspicuousness or previous attractiveness. Edible items, in contrast, became preferred items. The birds' behaviour should result in their assessing the background milieu of any environment and then potentially finding all edible objects in it. This prediction was tested by subjecting the forest birds to a range of items from a seashore. |
| URL: | http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0003347295801308 |
| Short Title: | Animal Behaviour |
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