Pigeons integrate past knowledge across sensory modalities

► We tested pigeons across sensory modes in a habituation/dishabituation paradigm. ► Pigeons react on urgency and functional reference that are encoded in predator cues. ► Pigeons integrate visual and acoustic cues to evaluate a threat. ► Pigeons judge the novelty of information by comparisons with past knowledge. ► Pigeons infer the risk of predation from contextual information.