This Bird Really Likes to Share Nature's Secrets

Honeyguide birds in Africa know all the best places to score the sweet stuff from hives hidden in trees—and luckily for human foragers, they are apparently eager to share this info. NPR takes a look at new research in the journal Science that demonstrates the birds have learned to collaborate on a very local level, despite no training from their human friends. Indigenous foragers in different countries have distinct ways of communicating with the Greater Honeyguide. A whistle from the Hazada in Tanzania, or a trilling sound ending with a grunt by the Yao in Mozambique, will get their attention. Once the foragers make these calls, a bird swoops in, chattering and chirping for them to follow.

From up high, the birds have the best view of where bees are congregating. Claire Spottiswoode, a collaborator on the study, tells Science that they "learn the landscape intimately," making them an ideal teammate for foragers. The honey hunter follows the bird, knowing that when it lands on a tree branch and falls silent, a beehive awaits inside. Now for the neat part. When the researchers used recordings of the Yao bird call in Tanzania and the Hazada bird call in Mozambique, the honeyguide birds responded less frequently, showing they developed a specific means of communication with their local community.

"This is a very strong result which supports the idea that there's a learning process involved," said anthropologist Brian Wood, who coauthored the paper with Spottiswoode. The birds appeared around 70-80% of the time a forager used their local call, but only about 25% of the time a different group's call sounded. Scientists still do not know what benefit honeyguide birds get from spilling the secrets of the forest (other than a bit of beeswax to snack on), but it's an example of symbiotic human-animal communication that continues to fascinate the scientific community. NPR notes that humans and dolphins also found a way to work together to fish in Brazil. (All American birds that honor people will be renamed.)