Great Tits Help Their Friends

Anyone who has ever seen Great Tits fussing at a bird feeder would not think of them as animals prone to cooperation. However, the popular garden birds commonly join together to chase away predators like weasels and woodpeckers who might be planning to make a meal of their young. Scientists have now discovered that Great Tits recognise alarm calls from birds who have nested beside them for several breeding seasons. The birds are then more likely to respond to calls for help from their friends than from birds they do not know.

Scientists suggest that the birds may not be acting altruistically when they respond to their neighbours' calls of alarm. They might just be thinking that if their neighbour's nest is being threatened then theirs could be next. Or they might be helping their neighbour to ensure that when they themselves are in trouble they will be able to call in the favour, something Ada Grabowska-Zhang of the University of Oxford describes as a "Great Tit tit-for-tat".

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