Grackle stick tool use data, Santa Barbara, CA USA 2014-2015

Behavioural flexibility is considered a key factor in the ability to adapt to changing environments. One way of characterising behavioural flexibility is to determine whether individuals invent solutions to novel problems, termed innovativeness. Great-tailed grackles are behaviourally flexible in that they can change their preferences when a task changes, however it is unknown how far they will go to invent solutions to novel problems. To begin to answer this question, I gave grackles three novel tests that a variety of other species can perform: dropping stones down a platform apparatus to release food, stick tool use, and string pulling. No grackle spontaneously dropped stones down the platform apparatus, but 6/8 did become proficient after training. No grackle spontaneously pulled a vertically oriented string, but one did pull a horizontally oriented string twice. No grackle used a stick to access out of reach food, even after seeing a human demonstrate the solution. These results support the idea that behavioural flexibility is a multi-faceted trait because grackles exhibit behavioural flexibility and are not particularly innovative. However, results contradict the idea that behavioural flexibility and innovativeness are the same trait.