BARN owls have the politest children. Instead of badgering their parents and
fighting over the next meal, chicks negotiate with each other so the hungriest
can eat first.
Most scientists have assumed that nestlings cry out purely to attract the
attention of their parents. But in many bird species, chicks call all night,
even when the parents aren’t around. Zoologist Alexandre Roulin wondered whether
these nestlings are actually communicating with each other.
So Roulin, of the University of Bern, Switzerland, and his colleagues chose
two siblings at random from broods of barn owls (Tyto alba) and gave
one of the…
