In 2018, cockatoos in the suburbs of Sydney began flipping open household wheelie bins by wedging their beaks under the lid and walking sideways along the rim, and the technique spread bird-to-bird across 44 suburbs in two years, mapped by University of Sydney researchers

In 2018 a cockatoo in southern Sydney worked out how to flip open a wheelie bin lid by wedging its beak under the edge and walking sideways along the rim. Within three years the technique had spread bird-to-bird across 44 suburbs — and the humans started copy…