Birds also make symbolic gestures

When visiting nests, the female tit sits on a branch and flaps her wings to invite her mate to come home first. For Japanese ornithologists who have observed this behavior very closely, this is the first time we have proven that these birds are capable of such symbolic gestural language.

Hervé Poirier, editor-in-chief of the scientific journal Epsilonhe explains to us that titmouses are very polite…

franceinfo: Chickadees that are very polite, to the point of letting go of their mate first? Tell us…

Hervé Poirier: At the very beginning of the week, in science card On Monday, Anne Le Gall told us about the workings of the tit’s memory, capable of remembering all the places where they hid food for the winter.

Observations by Japanese ornithologists highlight another aspect of this behavior. They are also very, very polite. And they express this politeness with a very precise language of gestures.

I.e? What actions do they do?

This is most often done by the female when the pair returns to the nest to bring food to the young. Perched on a branch next to the nest, it quickly flaps its wings to invite its mate to enter first. Equivalent “But after you, my dear…” that people can express by bowing their head a little and opening their palm.

These are specialists in animal communication from the University of Tokyo who precisely observed this behavior by watching 8 pairs of Japanese chickadees during 321 nest visits. These ornithologists discovered that a tit flaps its wings only when its mate is there, and that it stops when it has entered the nest.

This may seem quite trivial. But this is the first documented evidence in birds of a gesture that requires a very high level of cognition: a symbolic gesture.

A symbolic gesture?

Yes, in birds we have already observed so-called “deictic” gestures with a much more literal meaning, such as pointing a wing at an object to draw attention to it. Here is the transmission of a specific message: “But after you, my dear…” As do we when we wave our hand to say it “Goodbye” or give a thumbs up to say “everything is alright”. Which requires a much higher level of knowledge: it’s a real language.

Chickadees have been known to have complex vocal communications, with different sounds combined into sentences through grammar. We now know that symbolic gestures are also part of their vocabulary. And that they can express a very touching politeness.