animal cognition
One of the perks of my work is that I get to visit some beautiful places and get to see some amazing animal species. For three years, I visited New Caledonia to work with the incredible New Caledonian crows, a species that crafts and uses sticks and hooks as tools to extract grubs from rotten tree trunks. Here are some images of these crows, and a couple other endemic bird species that can be seen in the Grande-Terre island.
This year I spent two months living and working in New Caledonia, where I studied New Caledonian crows. These incredibly intelligent birds use tools in the wild to retrieve grubs from crevices in trees. Our work with them involves catching them in the wild and training them in captivity for a few months out of the year. They surprised me with their fast learning and incredible flexibility to solve problems.
During my time in New Caledonia I also had a chance to check out a few touristic spots, including a paradisiacal deserted island, a beautiful double waterfall, and a luxuriant tropical forest. The trip involved a fair bit of bird watching. Below are some of my favourite images of the wildlife and landscapes of New Caledonia's Grande Terre.
