Birds have some remarkable strategies for getting food. We’ve all seen wildlife programmes about Blue Tits negotiating everything from milk bottle tops to complicated bird-table mechanisms, I’ve mentioned previously the changing dietary habits of seagulls and starlings (see entries for 19th, 16th, 15th Nov) but one of the more fascinating behaviours I’ve seen in several different species of bird, is for them to move across lawns tapping the ground. Apparently, this mimics the sound of rain, which brings earthworms up to the surface in search of a bit of moisture. Having been fooled by the pattering of tiny feet and beaks, the hapless invertebrate then gets skewered by whatever bird has been doing a good job of impersonating a light shower.

You can try something similar for yourself. Indeed we performed the following experiment at school in a memorable biology lesson: First we were told to go out on to the school playing field and dig up various patches of turf to ascertain an average number of worms per square foot (most of which then ended up down the shirts of children who were considered lower in the cohort’s pecking order). Then, sample established, we all had to get down on all fours and tap other areas of ground rhythmically with whatever was to hand, fingers, pencils, or Michael Foreman’s head, and, after a few minutes, dig up these new patches and once again count the number of Lumbricidae present. Sure enough there was a much higher percentage of worms in these manipulated areas (along with a greater degree of anxiety in some of the more clairvoyant of our classmates).

Ok, now this is pretty smart, but I have also recently begun to notice the same behaviour in young urban seagulls, who will stand amongst a flock of grazing starlings, joining in with their smaller feathered brethren by pounding the ground with their webbed feet. I don’t know if this is because urban gulls think worms bear a passing resemblance to rather skinny hot dogs, and I doubt if they’d be able to get the worm out of the ground, but their attempt to learn new foraging techniques from other species of bird is, nevertheless, impressive.