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Published Online October 4, 2007
Science DOI: 10.1126/science.1146788

Brevia

Submitted on June 20, 2007
Accepted on September 17, 2007

Video Cameras on Wild Birds

Christian Rutz 1*, Lucas A. Bluff 1, Alex A. S. Weir 1, Alex Kacelnik 1

1 Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, South Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3PS, UK.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed.
Christian Rutz , E-mail: christian.rutz{at}zoo.ox.ac.uk

New Caledonian crows (Corvus moneduloides) are renowned for using tools for extractive foraging, but the ecological context of this unusual behavior is largely unknown. We have developed miniaturized, animal-borne video-cameras to record the undisturbed behavior of wild crows and produce a first detailed account of the species' natural foraging ecology. Our video-cameras revealed that prey items collected during long bouts of ground-foraging are considerably smaller than the woodboring beetle larvae that crows often hunt with stick tools. This finding highlights the potential economic and evolutionary relevance of tool use for New Caledonian crows. We also discovered a novel mode of tool use, and a hitherto unknown tool material, illustrating that tool-assisted foraging by crows is more plastic than previously thought. "Video-tracking" may have considerable potential for studying the behavior and ecology of many other bird species that are shy, or live in inaccessible habitats.


THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
A quick guide to video-tracking birds.
L. A Bluff and C. Rutz (2008)
Biol Lett 4, 319-322
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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)