Social learning of foraging is independent of boldness and sociability in the sociable granivorous passerine Serinus serinus

Individual learning takes advantage of previous experiences to adjust behaviour to conditions, but it includes risks and costs that can be overcome by social learning. Despite its relevance, there is still much to be learned about what kind of information birds are interested in and capable of gathering from conspecifics in the foraging context. We tested the social learning skills of a granivorous and gregarious cardueline finch, the Serin (Serinus serinus), that feeds on unpredictably distributed food. We worked with male and female birds using an observer-demonstrator paradigm where observers were given the opportunity to learn to reach hidden food from observation of demonstrators that were previously trained to perform the task. 40% of the observers tested were capable of learning a colour-food association. By contrast, in a control group of observers exposed to naïve demonstrators, none was capable to learn the association. The ability to learn was not influenced by sex or age class of both demonstrators and learners, but learners had longer wings than non-learners. We investigated whether sociability and boldness could explain the differences in learning ability, through the novel object and mirror personality tests. Although we found repeatability in the personality traits, they were not associated with social learning ability. Our study reveals a novel passerine bird with the ability for social learning and shows that granivorous birds that feed on unpredictably distributed food rely on the information gathered from conspecifics when searching for food.