Unusually, honeyguides are brood parasites, like cuckoos, so they are not reared by their natural parents. Their ability to locate bees' nests, Spottiswoode speculates in her paper describing the work in Science, is likely to be a genetically hard-wired trait. But, in the same way that the locals say that they learn to speak to the birds from their fathers, the honeyguides' response to humans is probably learned when individuals mix at the sites of successful honey-foraging.