Humans are not the animal world's only fashion followers. Tits (山雀) can be one of them, too. A study by Sonja Wild and Lucy Aplin shows that, given the chance, they make their nests (巢穴) with this season's must-have color.
Dr. Wild and Dr. Aplin followed up on a study which noted that the blue tits preferred to put the same plants into their nests. This also suggested fashion-following—and it led Dr. Wild and Dr. Aplin to imagine that birds were studying the nests of others and copying them.
The birds they followed carried instruments on them. That allowed researchers to follow a large number of tits by their arrival at food dispensers (自动取物装置) throughout the woods.
One day in March 2021, Dr. Wild and Dr. Aplin used five dispensers with wool rather than food. Each contained two colors—either orange and pink or blue and purple—but all were rigged to give only one of these. This remained so until at least one local nest was seen to include wool from a dispenser. At that moment, the other color was discovered, too. As a comparison, Dr. Wild and Dr. Aplin set up four wool dispensers in a separate area, each providing two colors from the beginning.
Of 68 tits' nests, 26 included wool from a dispenser. Of these, 18 were built after both colors had been gotten from all dispensers. Even so, 10 of that 18 included only the color of wool first chosen by a nest makers. By contrast (相比之下), all 8 nests with wool have mixed colors, which showed a clear difference in the record.
Tits, then, do seem to be "in fashion" when it comes to nest-building materials. Tits like those of the leaders of human fashions and it is worth more deep research.
