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takyon writes:

http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2016/07/21/486471339/how-wild-birds-team-up-with-humans-to-guide-them-to-honey

An African bird called the greater honeyguide is famous for leading people to honey, and a new study shows that the birds listen for certain human calls to figure out who wants to play follow-the-leader.

The finding underscores the unique relationship that exists between humans and this wild bird.

"They're definitely not domesticated, and they're in no way coerced," says Claire Spottiswoode of the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom. "And they're not taught in any conventional way as well. Humans are not deliberately going out there and training honeyguides."

She first heard of the honeyguide as an 11-year-old child in Cape Town, South Africa, where she went to a meeting of her local bird club and heard a lecture from the pioneer of honeyguide studies, a scientist named H.A. Isack.

In 1989, he published a rigorous analysis in the journal Science showing that the legends about the honeyguide were true: The birds will flutter in front of people, tweet, and fly from tree to tree to guide hunters to bees' nests that are hidden inside the trunks of hollow trees.

"By following honeyguides, human honey hunters can really increase their rate of finding bees' nests," says Spottiswoode.

An abstract is available; full article is paywalled.

Original Submission