Florida scrub jay social learning trial

An experiment where a female breeder in the family YTRE is tested to verify that she remembers the task, which she had been trained to perform 2 years earlier and previously tested 6 months earlier

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• Environment
• Florida
• scrub
• jay
• animal
• tradition

[godlessandhappy]

Hi,

Very interesting. I have a rescued Western Scrub Jay, raised from a baby. I am interested in your work. I have been studying and interested in the subtle differences between the Western and Florida Scrub. They are much more friendlier in the wild there. Do you know why or have a guess? I am posting a video response of my bird, wondering if you have noticed this behavior in the wild? I noticed a Wild scrub there on another video doing similar activity for a human. Thanks for the work!

[PeterMidford]

Godless, I heard those vocalizations from juvenile Florida jays from time to time. My doctoral advisor, who was compiling an ethogram of scrub jay behavior, termed them 'sub-song', with the implication that it was a type of practice vocalization. If your hand reared bird wasn't exposed to many vocalizations from wild jays, it may have exhibited an extended period of sub-song. I have 120 hours of this material, I will be posting more. Thanks for watching and for your video.

[VvAndromedavV]

Hello, I'm the one who posted the video clip of those vocalizations. My fiancé and I frequently make visits to Lyonia Preserve to visit the scrub jays. Every single time we have been (probably upwards of 15 times) we see the same family of jays (we know because they are banded). They are all adult birds, but we have observed multiple birds making that vocalization. At first when we went to visit them they never made any noises except for their typical, raspy call. (Continued in next post)...

[PeterMidford]

You are clearly right - your clip shows adults making these vocalizations, which would be soft song rather than subsong, which refers to a stage or process in vocal development. However, the birds in your video seemed to be foraging rather than engaging in lookout or sentinel behavior, where one bird goes to the highest nearby perch and may spend 10-15 minutes there until relieved/supplanted by another family member. Thanks for the vocalization in context. It's been 10 years since I was there.

[VvAndromedavV]

Eventually, though, we observed them making these soft, melodious noises. It was probably when we had visited them upwards of 10 times. One of them made these noises specifically in response to our presence. Since then, though, I have observed them making this noise to each other while foraging. The "look out" bird will make this noise, and then all the family members in the scrub who are caching food begin to make the noise as well. I have footage of two different adults singing this soft song.