Henkjan Honing has an interesting post on recent studies inquiring into the beat-inductive capacities of a certain youtubed cockatoo, along with 25 other parrots. Here's the (famous-on-the-internets) cockatoo footage:
Henkjan is moderately skeptical that this is bona fide, innate beat induction, suspecting instead "learned behavior and a mimicking phenomenon." I'm not sure where I stand on that issue. What I do think, though, is that learning to keep a beat this well based on visual mimicking is almost as remarkable as the "real" thing. (I'm pretty sure I've had one or two guitar students who couldn't have done it as well as this bird.)
*Alternate post title: "The Birds and the Beats." Just didn't want it to go to waste.
