A Meal Plan for Birds

Who: Researchers from the University of Cambridge in England

What: Testing scrub jays with food

When: February 28, 2007

Where: The University of Cambridge in England

Why: To learn about animal planning

My opinion:

My
opinion on this article was that these birds, scrub jays, and other
animals are just like humans. They plan out what to do with their food
to save it up for later. The experiment that was done by the
researchers from the University of Cambridge in England was to see what
the birds would do when in each room there was a different story food
wise. The researchers put these birds in chambers with two side rooms.
In the first part of the experiment, the researches grounded up the
bird's food so that they couldn't store it. On some days, the birds
were put into one of the rooms for up to two hours with no breakfast
and other days were put into the other room with ground up food. This
taught the birds that there was food in one room, but not the other.
The birds were given a surprise one day and got to eat as many pine
nuts as they wanted and stash away extras where ever they wanted for
later. I thought the birds were smart because they put most of the food
in the room where they knew the food never was. In the second
experiment, the researchers put peanuts in one room and food pellets in
the other. The birds learned which room was which and when they were
given a session to do whatever they wished with the food, they put more
peanuts in the food pellet room and more food pellets in the peanut
room. To me, these birds were very clever with planning what to do with
their food.


Site: http://www.sciencenewsforkids.org/articles/20070228/Note3.asp