New nesting spot?

When we built the new aviary, we decided to take down the old platform that has served as a base for Siden and Juno's nest the last two years. As we want to use the new, adjacent aviary for the other group of ravens, we thought it would be too close to a nest which might create unnecessary aggression and unwanted stress.
Siden and Juno weren't too happy about me taking away their platform, but very quickly they adopted the new perches that I put up instead.

Old spot for the nest to the right, new nest box to the left.

We already tried a nestbox last year, and Siden and Juno started to build a nest in it, but it turned out to be too small, so they returned to their old platform where they bred successfully.

Old abandoned nest box.

New nest box.

The new box is at least twice as big as the old, and much higher. I made a plexi glass hatch in the roof, but I am not sure they will approve, and in that case it is easy to cover. In the wild, ravens nest in high trees or on cliffs, so we are not sure that Siden and Juno will like the idea of a box, but we will give it a try this year. And they have already spent some nights sitting in the opening.

As usual when you are in Siden and Juno's aviary they come down to hang out with you. Especially when you have exciting new things with you...like a camera. To get a good picture, I ran in and immedeately took a photo, which ended up like this:

Siden on his way down to me and the camera.

 And the second like this...

//Helena

New aviary

Since we have some "unused" space between the two aviaries, we decided to build a third aviary to improve the flexibility of the complex, and - most importantly - increase the ravens' living area.

The unused space in front of the runway would connect the two aviaries even more.

The problem was, that we had several studies going on before Christmas that needed to be finished, before we could start building. Juggling around with five metre long posts and big rolls of metal mesh could easily scare the ravens and interfere with the experimenting. So we waited as long as possible and settled on four days just before Christmas, which would give the ravens several weeks to calm down before Ivo, Can and Russ would be back to continue their studies.

The weather turned out to be extremely bad those days - a lot of rain and hard wind - but we were determined!

First post in place!

The constant rain was troublesome in several ways. When digging the hole for the concrete fundaments, some of them almost immideately filled with water, and the ground got extremely muddy and slippery.

Ivo, me, Mathias and Can, photographed by Russ.

Spreading lots of straw on the ground helped a little, and also made it look a litte less dull.

Ivo, Russ and Can

Since the ground was soft from all the rain, the fundaments tended to move when we leaned ladders against the posts, so every ladder had to be counterbalanced with another ladder on the other side of the post.
But it all went surprisingly well despite the weather and the shortage of time. We knew that we had to finish all the basic construction - especially the roof - before everybody left for christmas, otherwise it wouldn't be possible for me and Mathias to finish the rest of it by ourselves.

Panorama by Ivo - click to enlarge.

In the end, hard work and good spirits turned out to be enough, and we almost finished the roof before everybody left, and then the two of us had some extra days to work on walls, doors and interior material.

Panorama by Ivo - click to enlarge.

Another positive thing was the the ravens were much less effected by the building than we had anticipated. It might have helped that it was familiar people who carried around long items, hammered and drilled, but nevertheless we were greatly surprised. And it didn't take long for them to dare to check out the new place and start to play - testing the new braches and digging in the ground. However, before we can start to use it, we need to get permit from "Jordbruksverket", but hopefully that will not take long.

Thanks again Ivo, Can and Russ!

/Helena

Beautiful ravens

Organizing old photos made me once again realize how beautiful ravens are - even when they are not in mid-air, wings spread. These photos are all from the first year, when the ravens were less than 6 months old. They look quite big, but compared to adult ravens the bodies are much more slender, beaks are thinner and pointier, and and mouths are still pink. The last picture is from the wild park in Grünau, Austria, where much of the wild raven research is done.

 

 

 

 

  

Radio documentary

Last spring, Lotta Malmstedt from the Swedish National Radio, started working on her documentary on our raven research. Around a year ago, she did the last recordnings, and yesterday the 50 minute long documentary was sent on radio P1. Listen to it here!

New grant from the Swedish Research Council!

Earlier this week, the Swedish Research Council announced the recievers of their International Career Grants, and Mathias turned out to be one of the twentyfour lucky researchers! 

His project "The social intelligence hypothesis and the episodic memory system – the role of memories in the social skills of cognitively complex animals" got funding for four years (starting 2015), which includes full-time employment for Mathias, one PhD-student and part-time employment for a research assistant.

The Career grant aims at developing young researchers both as scientists and leaders, in close collaboration with a foreign University - in this case Thomas Bugnyar's group at the Department of Cognitive Biology, University of Vienna.

The overarching purpose of the project is to investigate the role of memory systems, in particular episodic memory, in complex social life, and thereby provide new insights into the evolution of complex cognition.   

The focus will be on ravens as the University of Vienna and Lund University have the only research facilities for studying raven cognition. This enables the project to test effects of different parameters – such as sex, rank, age and population – in a statistically robust way, which is usually very difficult in raven cognition studies - and up to  20-40 raven subjects can be involved in each of the different studies! Chimpanzees will also be added to one of the set ups, as such comparisons are important in understanding the potential parallel evolution of the cognitive skills. 

//Helena

Recap summer 2014

Lots of things have happened since my last blog post in May. Maybe the most important thing is that we extended the group with three new wildcaught raven chicks. They all come from nests nearby - the closest only 800 metres away.
Meet Kalle, Embla and Hilda!

Kalle, Embla and Hilda

Although the nests were so close in range, the age of the chicks differed widely. I had been observing the nests a few times per week ever since the females started sitting on the nests, but as many nests are quite deep, and also located high up it's difficult to get a glimpse of the chicks in order to determine their age. The youngest was barely 2 weeks old, and we named him Kalle, since he looked like Donald Duck (Kalle Anka in Swedish) when he first arrived.

Kalle

The PhD students  - Ivo and Can- were busy all summer documenting the developmental stages of the young, which will later result in a paper on the cognitive development in raven chicks. At the moment all other ravens are also taking part in different studies on planning and physical cognition.

During summer, two new papers were published;  "The future of future-oriented cognition in non-humans: theory and the empirical case of the great apes" (Osvath & Martin-Ordas)
and
"Independent evolution of similar complex cognitive skills : the importance of embodieddegrees of freedom"(Osvath, Kabadayi & Jacobs)

Mathias also participated in the Social Brain Conference in Copenhagen, contributing with a poster on the contagious play study. The conference hosted several world leading experts on social cognition and its relation to the brain. The participants formed a mix of neurobiologists and animal cognition researchers - a fruitful combination.

After summer we welcomed a new member of the group - master student Russel Reiter. He will take several courses at the station, and most importantly write his master's thesis here on raven cognition.

The seminar room.

In mid October we had our yearly cleaning day of the station, and also the inauguration of the seminar room on the second floor - the "Hugin Hall". When the department of Cognitive Science moved from Kungshuset to the new LUX-house a lot of furniture was left behind - enough to furnish the station's lecture hall, so now we are ready for lectures, symposiums and courses!

The cosy corner.

//Helena

Two new publications on raven play!

In May's issue of Animal Behaviour and Cognition, we have contributed with no less than two papers - both on raven play.

"An exploration of Play Behaviours in Raven Nestlings" (Osvath, Osvath & Båth) is study of the nestlings from last year, where we analyzed almost 20 hours of nest activity - discovering that the chicks actually spent equal or more time playing in the nest than on maintenance behaviors and flight training.

"Sub-adult Ravens Sunchronize their play: A Case of Emotional Contagion" (Osvath & Sima) is a study on the sub-adult ravens which explored instances of contagious behaviors within the play domain.The results indicate emotional contagion: the birds engaged in all categories of play on a higher level under the condition where contagion was likely to occur. This type of contagion is thought of as a key phenomena in the development of advanced social cognition in humans. This is the first time ever it has been shown in birds.

//Helena