Amazing talk by my partner @pablorecio93.bsky.social at ASSAB 2026 (@animbehav.bsky.social), and funnily, about pair bonding in reptiles

Another fantastic talk about the fairywren by Samuele Ramellini @sramellini.bsky.social #ASSAB2026 make sure to check out his paper!

Today I presented my talk at ASSAB 2026 (@animbehav.bsky.social) about my experimental work investigating innovation and social learning in wild cockatoos. Always a privilege to share my work, and hear what everyone else is up to across the Australasian region!

🎉New paper alert 🥳 Does proximity of breeding hollows influence foraging associations in wild cockatoos? doi.org/10.1098/rsbl... (🧵—1/2) With @lucymaplin.bsky.social , A. Csak

🎉🦜NEW PAPER ALERT 🦜🎉 Which social learning biases underly the acquisition of novel food in wild parrots ? We (@lucymaplin.bsky.social, @bjjbarrett.bsky.social, @sonjawild.bsky.social, @drjohnmartin.bsky.social) presented >700 cockies with a novel, artificial food (🧵1/6)

There is order in pandemonium 😜 1- We show that wild SC-cockies have sex & age structured hierarchies, stable for at least 3 years 🏆 2- We provide guidance on how to choose the right threshold for your data when using rElo.

New paper alert! 🦜 We gave wild cockatoos puzzle boxes across Canberra’s urban gradient. The finding? Urban birds approach faster, but are not better solvers. Our results suggest that urbanization shapes neophobia independently from cognitive performance. Read it here: doi.org/10.1093/behe...

The first #kakapo chick for four years hatched two days ago (on Valentine’s Day for those who like to anthropomorphise!). Here’s Tiwhiri-A1-2026 in Yasmine’s nest. 📸: Deidre Vercoe. www.doc.govt.nz/news/media-r... #kakapo2026 #conservation #parrots #birds

A few days short of my 8(!!) year anniversary in the Aplin lab, it‘s time to say goodbye to a truly amazing lab & start a new, exciting, chapter! R: 1st day of PhD fieldwork &1st time having a bird land on me (2018). L: soaked through (but happy!) postdoc with the same bird, Tobruk (103).

Italian friends! Sono stata invitata a partecipare ad un episodio di ‘Disco scienza’ con Andrea Bellati, se siete curiosi di saperne di più sulle mie ricerche andate ad ascoltare 🦜 open.spotify.com/episode/3sFz...

🎉🍾 very excited to see this out before 2025 ends doi.org/10.1111/2041... with Will Hoppitt in @methodsinecoevol.bsky.social. This paper is an overview of our new R package STbayes, a user-friendly toolkit for performing Bayesian NBDA analyses. @cbehav.bsky.social @mpi-animalbehav.bsky.social

Our paper on cockatoos innovating+social learning the use of bubblers as an urban water source was one of the 10 most popular papers for 2025 in the Royal Society's journals. Couldn't be more pleased! royalsociety.org/blog/2025/12...

My #BirdOfTheDay #Headshots is Sulphur-crested Cockatoo from Lorne, Victoria, Australia #WildOz #birds #birding #parrots 🪶

A teaser for my talk this Saturday. Can't go wrong with a parrot on the title slide...🪶🦜🧠🧪

Excited to share insights on urban cockatoos innovations at the Australasian Ornithological Conference 2025, in Perth

Big day yesterday, CleverCockie lab member Lisa Fontana @lisafontana.bsky.social finished the last day of data collection for her PhD, completing an experiment on social learning in cockatoos. Congratulations Lisa! 🎉

That's the spot...! A trio of allopreening cockies engaging in some social bonding at our field-site, captured by @elliearose.bsky.social. If you'd like to learn more about when and why cockies allopreen, check out a recent paper by @julia-penndorf.bsky.social: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

An extremely clever cockie, or one regretting their life choices? Spotted at our Canberra field-site by @lisafontana.bsky.social, it's first time we've seen a sulphur-crested cockatoo successfully fledge 3 chicks! The usual is 2 eggs laid, resulting in 0-1 chicks.

Hi Bluesky! 👋 We're the account for the Clever Cockie Project, researching culture and cognition in urban sulphur-crested cockatoos. We'll post updates from the field, along with our recent results and publications. You can find more, including our current team, here: www.clevercockies.com/the-team

Great example of successful citizen science #ASABSpring2025

#conferencegoals #ASABSpring2025 What an amazing bunch 🦤

Learning about those mischievous wild cockatoos with Lisa Fontana from the Australian National University #cultureconference2025 @cultconf.bsky.social