In the nest, some adults make a short, repeated call with each visit. The chicks seem to learn quickly what this sound means. But who is teaching whom, and why?
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The setting is the pied babbler, a small African bird that lives in groups. When chicks are present, adults give purr-like calls that do not seem to bring them any immediate benefit. Researchers played this call to wild chicks, and they learned to respond to it, but only when the call was consistently followed by food.
The authors of this work see a form of teaching here, since adults actively link the signal to food during feeding visits. This reading is still debated: the call could also trigger begging or serve other functions.
Few animals meet the strictest criteria for teaching. Among birds, convincing evidence remains scarce, and so far it concerns just one species.
