Social Learning of Migratory Performance

Analysed the migration tracks of captive-bred whooping cranes released into a reintroduced population, testing how far birds strayed from the straight route against their age and the age composition of the group they travelled with.

Studied in

Grus americana

Sample size

eight years of tracked reintroduced whooping cranes

Deviation from the direct route fell as birds aged, and a group containing older birds performed better than one of the same size without them; the presence of a single older individual accounted for far more improvement than group size did.

• A reintroduced population that learned its first route from human-led aircraft, which is not how a wild population acquires one.
• One long-lived, socially migrating species; it says nothing about the many songbirds that migrate alone in their first year.

• Following young cranes for eight years to see who taught them

  When a migratory route improves with age, is the bird getting better on its own or learning from older birds?

• Bird migration

  In some species the route is not inherited at all — it is learned from older birds. A single experienced individual in a flock improves the whole group’s route more than any number of young ones.