Original title: Social relationships promote access to food and information in wild jackdaws
Researchers tracked wild jackdaws at feeders where two birds could perch, but only one could eat at a time. Birds with close family or pair bonds arrived together more often and with less time between their arrivals. When a bonded partner was present, the feeding bird was less likely to be displaced. The bird waiting behind spent time beside its partner instead of feeding, while young birds may have learned feeder use by following their parents.
Imagine waiting in line at a busy lunch counter with someone close to you. The counter serves only one person at a time, and waiting means you miss time you could spend eating. In this paper, the line is the feeder: one bird waits beside its partner, and the bird eating is less likely to be pushed away when that partner is there.
For wild jackdaws, close relationships can change who gets food and who learns how to use a feeder. The birds that wait give up time, so social bonds can bring both immediate benefits and costs.
The abstract does not establish that a partner's presence directly causes lower displacement or that juveniles definitely learn feeder use from their parents; it describes the latter as probable. It also does not show that these short-term feeding effects cause long-term fitness advantages, only that they may contribute to them.
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Social relationships promote access to food and information in wild jackdaws — Luca G. Hahn, Guillam E. McIvor, Ines Fürtbauer et al. — Proceedings of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences — doi:10.1098/rspb.2026.1462
Abstract licence: CC BY
Explanation generated by Synthesis from the abstract — it is not the original paper.