Short Wave - This Wild Bird Will Lead You To Honey On Command

Episode Date: January 22, 2024

Honeyguides are wild birds that team up with humans and then lead them to honey. Researchers recently found that the calls these birds respond to are unique and tied to their location. NPR science correspondent Nell Greenfieldboyce talks about this relationship and shares how researchers followed honeyguides to learn about their call behaviors. Read Nell's full story here. Hear about an amazing wildlife phenomenon? Email us at [e-mail]. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

You're listening to Shortwave from NPR. Hey everyone, it's Regina Barber. And we've got NPR's science correspondent, Nell Greenfield Boys, here, to tell us about a wild bird that has an unusual relationship with humans. Hey, Nell. Hey, Gina. Okay, so Nell, this bird is called The Greater Honey Guide. And honestly, I'd never heard of it until, well, today. What about you?

I heard about it, oh, God, maybe 10 years ago. maybe not quite that long. My kids were reading a book, one of those magic tree house books. It was called Lions at Lunchtime. And in the book, part of the plot is that there's this wild bird that leads people to honey. That's why it's called The Honey Guide.

And it's a real bird. It's not just like some made-up fiction thing. These birds are like eyes in the sky. And they know where the beehives are hidden inside of tree trunks. And so they'll lead people to those trees. people can hack the tree trunks open, subdue the bees with smoke, get the honey, and then what the bird gets out of it is they get to eat the discarded wax. It's just like a fascinating story, right? And these birds are not trained, right? They're in the wild. Yeah, I mean, people hunt with animals sometimes, like dogs or falcons, but those are trained animals.

The honey guide is just a wild bird flying around. Nobody is teaching it anything. And across parts of Africa, there are different communities who have worked with this. bird for generations, like in Kenya and Mozambique and Tanzania. And you can see why this appeals to kids, right? Because it's like you're able to communicate with an animal out in nature. Like just this, you know, animal living out there, you know, will sort of make contact with you and you'll go on this adventure together. And, you know, it's incredibly appealing. Like, that's certainly how Claire Spottiswood felt. She's a researcher I talked to. I've been obsessed with birds since I was about seven. So by then I was already a well-established nerd.

She was so nerdy. She used to go to lectures with this bird club in Cape Town where she was living. And she says that someone came in and gave this presentation about the Honey Guide. And I attended as an 11-year-old child and, of course, was transfixed and enthralled. And she is now doing world-class research on this bird. Oh, that's amazing. Like, see, childhood obsessions can become careers. I mean, it's true for me.

Yeah, I think it's often true when I talk to scientists. That's true for another researcher that Claire recently collaborated with. This guy is named Brian Wood, and he told me he remembers learning about the Honey Guide back when he was about 10 years old. And I saw a BBC documentary by David Attenborough, no less. And that was my first impression about how Honeyguides and humans cooperate with one another. He kind of filed the story away. And years later, when he was doing field work, he suddenly got a very up-close and personal experience of this strange partnership between people and a wild animal.

Okay, so fair warning to any parents out there. This is a story that might impact the future careers of your kids. And with that out of the way, today on the show, we're going to explore a pretty sweet relationship between humans and a wild bird. And we're going to talk about why scientists are so interested in this teamwork. You're listening to Shortwave, the science podcast from NPR. Okay, now, so let's say you're a person living in one of these places where people might pair up with the honey guide. How do you even do that? You go outside and then what? Like, walk me through this interaction. Okay, so you go outside and you make some noise and basically the bird shows up. I mean, Brian Wood has experienced this while working with the Hadesa community in Tanzania.

And he says, it's basically like a game of follow the leader. The bird is very conspicuous. You know, it'll fly to the hodzah with its chattering. sound that lets the honey hunter know that, hey, I'm here and I know where there's some honey, so follow me. And then it flies from branch to branch until it reaches a tree with honey. And then it perches there sort of silent. The bird goes quiet, and that's the signal to the Hadesa to really start looking for that tree and that opening to the bee nest.

And so usually Haza honey hunters only have to look at a couple of different trees at that stage, and they'll find the nest. Wow. That's really incredible. It is really cool. And I mean, it's cool to hear about, but imagine actually doing it. I mean, Claire Spottiswood told me when she was out there being guided by a bird, it was like something magical, like out of a fairy tale. I don't think I've ever had as much fun in my life. Yes, perhaps that shows what a sheltered life I've led. But it was tremendously good fun. For the communities that are making a living, foraging, and hunting, though, it's not just fun because honey can be a major source of calories. And this bird helps them find way more honey than they otherwise would. Brian Wood, that researcher who works with the hudza, he's calculated that that community gets about 10% of the calories in their annual diet with the help of honey guides.

Wow. Okay. And these birds are getting something out of it too, right? It's just amazing to think about these wild birds, noticing these beesiness, storing that info in their brains, and then looking for a person to pair up with, right? That's right. Yeah, because they know they'll get the wax, which is like their favorite thing. And they do actually look for people. I mean, Brian told me that can be a problem if somebody's out there who doesn't want to go honey hunting. Let's say they're trying to like creep up on an animal like a prey animal, you know, sort of hiding in the bushes and trying to be quiet. And then suddenly a honey guide will appear and start chattering away, you know, giving away their location. But, you know, that's not the norm, right? Usually people go out and trying to get the attention of these birds sort of calling to them. And that's what he and Claire Spottiswood were curious about.

What do you mean? What were they curious about? So back in the 1980s, there was this important scientific study of honey guides because there had been anecdotes about this relationship, you know, birds working with people. You know, researchers had heard about this for a long time. But this study was the one that actually showed it was a real thing. And in that study, people in Kenya called to the birds with this piercing whistle that they made by either blowing into their fists or shells or like a hollowed out nut. And what Claire noticed is that at her study site in Mozambique, people didn't do that. They used a different sound to attract the birds. It goes something like this.

Brr. Hmm? Brr. Hmm? So on the face of it, it's a rather unlikely noise. Burr. Hmm? Brer.

Hmm? Who you are? Hmm? Mm? Brerrr. So this is a recording she made of somebody. out there actually making the sound to attract a honey guide. I actually like how it's like kind of a question at the end, that sound.

Okay, so the birds respond to that sound. I mean, do they know that sound or do they just know that, like, there's a person out there? Well, that's what she was curious about. So, you know, a bunch of years ago she did this experiment, comparing how the birds responded to that sound with the sound of people just speaking, like, words. Segoo, who each. So that's somebody saying the words honey guide and human in the local language, right? So she had people walk around either make the special call or just say these words.

And what she found is that the birds would only guide people about a third of the time if they heard those words. But if they heard, they would guide people two thirds of the time, right? So a lot more. And overall, this special call more than tripled. a honey hunter's chance of finding honey. That's like, that's really fascinating. Like, what about this call makes it so appealing to birds? So that's an interesting question, right?

Because clearly, you know, you had two places, Kenya and Mozambique, that were using two different strategies. One group of people was using a piercing call. Another group of people was using this trill plus a grunt. And then Brian Wood was working over in Tanzania. And where he worked, the hatsa people called. to the birds with a different kind of whistle. So, you know, not shrill and piercing, but sort of more like a melody, you know.

And the question is, are these, like, calls just sounds that the birds innately like? Like, would it matter to them, which sounds they heard? Or do the honey guides somehow learn the local call that their human neighbors make when they want to go out looking for honey? I mean, the people said they learned it from their parents. And these calls are passed down like cultural information from generation to generation. And the researchers say that the folks they interviewed stick with the traditional calls in their area because they say that's what yields the most honey. Wow. Okay. So I gather they found a way to test how birds respond to these different calls. Exactly. So Brian and Claire teamed up. And what they did first is record the calls, you know, in each location.

And then in each place, Tanzania and Mozambique, they did this experiment where they followed a hunter holding a speaker that blared recordings of these different calls, you know, plus a control like some people talking. And then they recorded what was playing whenever the birds showed up. Okay. What was the conclusion? I'm super excited. So what they found is that the birds were way more likely to respond when they heard the call made by their local people, the humans they lived close to. That's really sweet. Yeah, it is.

It shows that there really is this like close-knit relationship. Like in Tanzania where the Hadsah honey hunters whistle to the birds, those whistles really appeal to the honeyguides who appeared 82% of the time that whistles were being played. Wow. But the birds only appeared 24% of the time when the researchers were playing that kind of like trill grunt that's traditionally used in Mozambique. And for the birds in Mozambique, the opposite was true, right? I mean, they liked the trills.

You know, they responded to those 73% of the time. But when, you know, whistles from Tanzania were being broadcast, they only responded 26% of the time. So, like, way less. Okay, so this makes sense. So the birds in each place seem to know that, okay, when I hear this particular sound, that means a human wants to team up with me and go get honey. Yeah. And it really supports the idea that for the birds, there's some kind of learning process involved. You know, what that process is, nobody knows.

So these birds are the kind that lay their eggs in the nests of another species. So honey guides aren't even raised by their biological parents. Wow. Still, Brian told me, you know, they could learn by observing other honey guides. When we look at honey guides after humans have harvested honeycomb from a bee colony, what we see is not just one honey guide typically that's there to sort of enjoy the spoils of that honey hunting, but there's often several honey guides up to a half a dozen her. even more. So one way or another, the birds seem to figure it out. And this has been going on for a long

time. This relationship seems very old. Like how old? No one knows, right? But the key assets that the humans bring to the table are fire to calm the bees and then tools to hack open the tree trunks. And humans have had those tools for many, many thousands of years. So this could be a relationship that's ancient. And, you know, there's not really anything else like it. In terms of like humans with wild animals, you know, not domesticated animals, but wild animals. I mean, there are some stories about like maybe fishing collaborations between, you know, sea mammals, like dolphins and humans. There are stories out there. But this is a really unusual thing. All right, Nell, well, thank you for this story.

It actually does my heart good to think about humans and wild animals cooperating like this. And who knows, maybe in 20 years, some kid listening to this will go out and do their own honey guide research. Absolutely. And, you know, if the fates allow, maybe you and me will be here to report on it. That would be nice. This episode was produced by Burley McCoy, edited by our showrunner Rebecca Ramirez and fact-checked by now. The audio engineer was Gilly Moon. Beth Donovan is our senior director and Colin Campbell is our senior vice president of programming. I'm Regina Barber.

And I'm Nell Greenfield Boys. Thank you for listening to Shortwave from NPR.