The Press and Journal (Inverness, Highlands, and Islands)
Drumming parrot that never misses the beat
Science: Study reveals Australian birds have individual styles
An Australian parrot that makes drum sticks from branches has been named the Ringo Starr of the animal kingdom.
Scientists came up with the comparison after a seven-year study in which wild palm cockatoos were filmed drumming with rhythmic precision to impress prospective mates.
While song birds and whales may be natural music-makers,
“Some males were consistently fast, some were slow”
the parrot is one of the very few species known that can recognise a beat.
Professor Rob Heinsohn, who led the team from The Australian National University, said: “The large smoky-grey parrots fashion thick sticks from branches, grip them with their feet and bang them on trunks and tree hollows, all the while displaying to females.
“The icing on the cake is that the taps are almost perfectly spaced over very long sequences, just like a human drummer would do when holding a regular beat.”
The drumming ability of the palm cockatoo was already known, but never before have performances of the shy and elusive bird been studied in such detail.
Over a period of seven years, the researchers stalked the parrots through thick rainforest armed with a video camera.
They filmed 18 male palm cockatoos drumming, each of which got into the groove in its own individual way.
“Some males were consistently fast, some were slow, while others loved a little flourish at the beginning,” said Prof Heinsohn.
“Such individual styles might allow other birds to recognise who it is drumming from a long way away.”
A total of 131 recorded sequences showed how similar the cockatoos’ drumming styles were to those of humans.
Writing in the journal Science Advances, the researchers pointed out the parrots were not responding to an external stimulus, but generating their own regular beats.
They added: “Male palm cockatoos appear to be more like solo musical artists or the beat setters of musical ensembles, for example, drummers in rock bands, who have their own internalised notion of a regular pulse, and then generate the motor pattern that creates the beat.”
The bird is the only nonhuman species known to make percussive sounds with manufactured drum sticks. Chimpanzees will hit hollow logs with their hands or feet, or bang a rock against a tree, but have never been observed making tools to drum with.