Some birds are capable of planning for the future, learning to store food they anticipate will be in short supply, according to researchers at the University of Cambridge.

Experiments conducted on western scrub-jays showed the birds were savvy in planning ahead by not only guarding against food shortages but also making choices to maximize the variety of their diet.

Professor Nicky Clayton and her team at the department of experimental psychology at Cambridge University — who published their findings in the Wednesday issue of Nature — said the concept of planning ahead was previously believed to be unique to humans.

Some characteristics of animal behaviour that look like planning are either instinctive, as in nest building or, in the case of food hoarding, prompted by immediate needs like hunger, said Clayton.

In one experiment, scrub-jays were separated at breakfast time into two compartments: one where breakfast was served, and another where it was not. The birds were mixed at other times of the day and allowed to eat powdered pine nuts. After several days, all the birds were given whole pine nuts suitable for hoarding, which they could hide in trays of sand in either compartment.

The scientists found the birds hid more pine nuts in the "no breakfast" room, where they would anticipate being hungry, than they hid in the room where food would be available in the morning.

In another experiment the birds were fed either dry dog food or peanuts in the morning. Later, given the opportunity to cache either one, the birds stashed peanuts in the dog food room, and dog food in the peanuts room.

"It suggests they have advanced and complex thought processes as they have a sophisticated concept of past, present and future, and factor this into their planning," said Clayton.

The study builds on other work at Cambridge on the capacity of scrub-jays to think ahead. Scrub-jays are members of the corvid family, which is considered the smartest group of birds and includes jays, crows and ravens.

They are not the only animal outside of humans that has demonstrated the ability to plan ahead.

A study published in December by University of Alberta professor Stan Boutin and an international team of researchers showed that red squirrels can sense when spruce trees will drop more than the usual number of seeds and plan an extra litter of offspring in anticipation of the bounty of food.

And earlier studies have shown orangutans and bonobos can remember which tools they need to retrieve a treat.