It has begun

None on the nest (in poor photo quality)

The egg-laying, that is - for None and Rickard. It started already two days ago, on the 8th of March, with None spending longer periods in the nest. Last year this happened on March 23th, so this is two weeks earlier. Siden and Juno seems to be a bit later, and are still happy to spend time with us when we are in the aviary.

We don't know yet if there are any eggs, and this aftenoon None took some time off from the egg-laying, preening on a high perch.

As soon as she left the nest, Rickard positioned himself as egg-guard in the doorway (to the right).

Last year, I kept feeding None and Rickard from inside of the experiment room, to get a glimpse of - and also to take pictures - of the chicks as they developed. But I am not sure that I will do that this year, as the parents do not particularly like it.

//Helena

Early birds?

Last year Rickard and None shocked us by all of a sudden building a nest in one of the experiment compartments. This was mid March. Then last Friday I noticed that all twigs and branches in the aviary was gone, and when I looked up, I saw this - almost one month early!

Today when I was running some tests on Rickard in the outdoor experiment area, he was only interested in gathering small pieces of lining anad dried grass. So I had to give him some time alone, let him back in with None and the nest, and then ask him to come back for the experiment. And once all the lining material was gone, it worked fine.

Usually the horses have started to loose their coat when the ravens are nesting, but this year it is so early that they have to make do with my home made strings of jute.

A bit afraid of the phone at first.

Getting closer.

Rickard was the most daring, and flew off wtih a mouthfull.

//Helena

Snowbathing

Tosta and Embla bathes in the snow.

Busy, busy days

Breeding season is coming up and there is so much to do! Once the females are on the nest we cannot work with the pairs until the chicks have fledged - a period of about 4 months. Another thing we wanted to do before breeding was to divide the largest aviary, housing the pair Rickard and None and the two females Embla and Tosta, so all birds get equally big space during breeding season. Once the courting behaviour starts we separate the breeders from the non-breeders to avoid any aggression.
At the same time we have been sprinting to end the experiments - a long-term planning study and a study on string-pulling involving all six birds - so it has been difficult to decide when to start the new construction.
However, as our birds are older and more used to different things the construction work went surprisingly smooth, and the ravens were happy to try out the new shelves and branches only after a day or two. The young females Tosta and Embla were also content with the new part and are separated from Rickard and None from now on. Hopefully we will be able to let them together again when autumn comes, but as ravens are territorial birds once they form pairs, we will have to wait and see.

//Helena

Students from Animal cognition course

Last Friday 20 students from the course in Animal Cognition visited the station. The course is given every second year and earns 7,5 credits.

"The course introduces important aspects of the zoological study of cognition, i.e. knowledge and research about other biological information- and knowledge systems than humans, in particular nonhuman primates and corvids. The course also discusses what can be learnt by comparing the cognition of different species and the common pitfalls in conclusions that this can entail."

To give the students some insight in empirical research and field work, they can either visit LU Primate Research Station in Furuvik, or the Corvid Cognition Station.

Here, Mathias gave an introductory lecture on why we study corvid cognition, and Can and Katarzyna presented their research. Some of the students met the ravens, who seemed content with the visitors.

//Helena

New paper on animal future‐oriented cognition

 

Last week WIREs Cognitive Science published an opinion piece by Mathias Osvath,  trying to sort out "the theoretical and terminological muddle" framing the ongoing debate on animal future- oriented cognition. Many researchers still remain convinced that no species other than human beings is able to anticipate future needs or otherwise live in anything other than the immediate present moment. However, rather than being based on empirical data, Osvath argues that this conviction might be the consequence of "largely unquestioned theoretical divides": therefore, putting animal prospection research into the context of evolution and contemporary cognitive science is of utmost importance for the future of this field.

The abstract of the paper: "Putting flexible animal prospection into context: escaping the theoretical box" can be found HERE. Please contact our research group if you are interested in the full pdf.

/Helena

Colourful research

Even though experimental setups must be correct and carried out with strict control, it doesn't mean that they have to be dull and grey.
This is what it looked like yesterday, when Ivo was trying out new material for his upcoming study on "disjunctive syllogisms".

//Helena