Lisa Fontana

However, it is important to consider that in our experiment all areas are urban, because we wanted to go beyond the urban-rural comparison. Therefore, we assume that all the roosts are exposed to artificial objects, but at different levels

Thank you so much 🦜Great point and yes, it can definitely be! One of our hypotheses is that as urbanisation increases, also familiarity with human derived objects increases

Social and ecological factors associated with innovation in urban sulphur-crested cockatoos (Cacatua galerita) Cities are challenging places for wildlife, but some species, like sulfur-crested cockatoos, adapt by finding new ways to feed and solve problems. We studi

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...

A kākāpō chick in a nest with an egg. Credit: Deidre Vercoe

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).

Back-scratching bovine leads scientists to reassess intelligence of cows Brown Swiss in Austria has been discovered using tools in different ways – something only ever seen in humans and chimpanzees

www.theguardian.com/science/2026...

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...

STbayes: An R package for creating, fitting and understanding Bayesian models of social transmission A critical consequence of joining social groups is the possibility of social transmission of information related to novel behaviours or resources. Network-based diffusion analysis (NBDA) has emerg...

🎉🍾 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 personal favorite, maybe I’m slightly biased 😂

A headshot of a bright white cockatoo with a yellow crest and its feathers fluffed up around its black beak.

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

A landscape image of a multicoloured small parrot with a long tail and the end of a long dead branch. The top of the slide reads: Why study bird brains?

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