Polly wants a cracker. Polly gets chopped vegetables, because parrots need a diverse array of nutrients. Polly eats one bite and flings the rest onto the floor.

This is a common occurrence in the homes of parrot-lovers across the world. No matter what sort of delicious, nutritious meal is prepared, “half of it lands on the floor and stuck to the walls,” said Kat Gupta, the caretaker of a bronze-winged pionus named Leia and a frequenter of online parrot message boards, where others swap stories of re-tossed salads and overturned bowls.

Polly, Leia and their peers aren’t necessarily being picky. They’re just being parrots. According to a study last month in Scientific Reports, wild parrots across the world also waste food — an unusual and confusing habit in the animal kingdom, where making the most of a meal is generally an important part of survival.

The new study provides “a comprehensive picture of parrots’ food wasting behavior in their natural environment,” said Anastasia Krasheninnikova, a biologist at the Max Planck Comparative Cognition Research Group in Spain, an independent commenter.