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By Dawn Hewitt on February 10, 2014 Leave a Comment

Operant Conditioning and the Northern Mockingbird

Stimulus. Response. Reward. Repeat.

The mockingbird gets excited as I open the back door and approach the shed. Even before I get back inside the house, he’s feasting.

Frigid temperatures and deep snow for weeks at a time likely contribute to this mockingbird’s eagerness to accept my daily food gifts. He consumes the entire 1/4 cup of mealworms throughout the day. When I give him more in the late afternoon, he doesn’t respond immediately the next morning. A full belly reduces motivation, I guess.

When the snow melts and the temperatures rise above freezing, it will be interesting to see if he is still so eager for a  breakfast of mealworms. I’ll let you know.

http://otwtb.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Mockingbird-video-2.m4v

About the Author
 Dawn Hewitt is the editor for Bird Watcher's Digest and Watching Backyard Birds. She has been watching birds since 1979, and wrote a weekly birding column for The Herald Times newspaper in Bloomington, Indiana, for 11 years.


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Filed Under: Backyard Birding Time

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