Nikolaas Tinbergen studied innate behaviour in gulls

• Newly hatched herring gulls know how to peck on their parents' beaks for food
• The adult gulls have a red spot on their beaks
• Tinbergen showed newborn gulls cardboard gull heads with different coloured spots on the beaks
• The newborn gulls pecked at the red spots more than any other colour
• He concluded that herring gulls are born with the instinct to peck at the red spot in order to find food