Julia's Birds, Bugs, Bikes and Boats Blog: I've got a wife and kids to feed, mate!

Doing the robin show at Zealandia has got more interesting. Usually the procedure is to show visitors how brainy these little guys are by showing how they retrieve a meal worm hidden in a log. They will continue to do this until they have eaten enough whereupon they will cache the last one in a preferred hiding place.

But now it is spring and the robins have breeding on their minds. They want to impress the female population. One of our little stars in particular has decided to perform only on his terms and one meal worm at a time just will not cut it. He usually eats one then comes back for another. At this point his behaviour changes. He collects the next meal worm then hops about, alternately looking at me then fiddling at the log. He repeats this until I get the message that he is not departing until he is given another meal worm. I oblige but he is still not satisfied. He will continue with his hopping and shaking of the leather leaf on the log until he has three or four lined up in his beak. Only at this point will he fly off, presumably to present his catch to his intended mate to show what a great little provider he is and what a wonderful mate he will be.

It is also interesting that he can still trill while his beak is full. In the video link below you can hear him singing - presumably to announce to any nearby female that he has what it takes.

The visitors are entranced by this tiny little bird's antics and he provides many photo opportunities. One other robin is also demanding more than one meal worm at a time but the others have not cottoned on to this ruse and are one meal worm at a time guys. Mathematically they have been discovered to be pretty clever and I feel this behaviour of demanding more gives another insight to their thinking. Not only do they understand the concept of more but also the idea that delaying gratification may lead to a greater reward, something that even humans can struggle with. Fascinating!