Hey you, leave my nest alone!!

Northern Mockingbirds quickly and easily become highly discriminating and sensitive to humans who have visited their nests even once and are perceived as potential predators. They can recognize the "correct" individual out of crowds of hundreds of people passing by, even on a busy college campus. 

Researchers designed the study because a graduate student who was monitoring nests in people's gardens noticed that whenever she arrived to check the nests, the birds would attack her but ignore other people nearby. They even learned to recognize her car!

The ingenious study by researchers at the University of Florida was recently published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.  Learn more in Discover Magazine: http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/80beats/2009/05/19/mockingbird-to-annoying-human-hey-i-know-you/

Here's a cool video that shows the story and the idea that science can be fun: