The children had long departed after the sun began to fade on a glorious autumnal afternoon but a youngster was still at play on the soft, wet sands of Long Beach, Lower Sandy Bay.
A juvenile silver gull played “boats” with a leaf, which it dropped and then retrieved from ripples of waves sweeping the shore.
I was intrigue by the bird’s behaviour at the tideline. The leaf had been blown into the sea and it was being washed ashore by the waters of the incoming tide.
The gull was picking up the leaf, sometimes shaking it by the stem, then wading into the ocean to drop it again. It then watched in fascination as the tide caught and dragged the leaf back to shore, and the game began again.
On one occasion, concentrating on the leaf, the gull did not see a large wave building up. As the wave hit the shore the gull glimpsed it finally and, just in time, jumped into the air to leapfrog over it, avoiding a drenching, and letting out a screech.
After a while the gull lost interest, and wandered off looking for something else, no doubt, to amuse it.
The question of whether or not birds indulge in play has long intrigued both nature lovers and scientists. It ties in with research into bird intelligence and in these studies the notion of play has taken second place to the more obvious exploration of avian cognitive powers, the use of tools fashioned from sticks to obtain food.
Scientists have now discovered it is not the use of tools that has resulted in some bird species attaining not only greater intelligence but greater brain size – it is play.
Researchers have divided this behaviour into three categories – solo play, object and social play.
But first the question: what is bird play?
Play behaviour usually occurs in juveniles but in some species, such as Australia’s cockatoos, it extends into adulthood. Play behaviour occurs in species which tend to have relatively long periods as juveniles, long-term support from parents and which grow up in stable social groups. This form of play is the most widespread among honeyeaters, parrots, magpies and some pigeon species.
With object play, objects of any kind and size are used, including sticks, stones and small household items.
Social play, involving two or more individuals, is by far the rarest category and often involves a bird holding an object in its beak and the others chasing it. Although published cases are largely limited to parrots and ravens, my own non-scientific observations of bird play largely involve the grey currawongs that visit my garden. I never understood why the currawongs stole the brightly coloured pegs from my washing line until I saw one bird inviting other members of the flock to give chase to try and grab its prized possession.