There is an increasing body of evidence for the existence of animal cultures. Recent work has also suggested cultural traits can be subject to selection, changing in form, function or distribution. Yet we still have relatively little empirical evidence for 1) how such processes operate, and 2) how it may interact with social and physical environments. Here, I broaden the scope to present an “evolutionary ecology of culture”, using evidence and examples from our studies on foraging traditions in birds. I ask questions like: When do innovations spread and persist? How do social networks, demographics and the environment shape learning? How and when do cultures change? I finish by discussing how the spread of innovations and cultural inheritance of knowledge might have important implications for behavioural flexibility under human-induced environmental change.