Social Behavior -- includes nonbreeding and breeding activities -- how birds interact with each other, space themselves, and maintain high fitness and survival -- feeding flocks common, especially in winter -- allow greater protection from predators, facilitates food gathering, saves energy from trying to keep individual territories -- some examples previously given: Harris’ Hawk, Western Gull and gull ‘gangs’, Double-crested cormorants swimming in formation to herd schools of fish
24
Embed
Social Behavior -- includes nonbreeding and breeding activities -- how birds interact with each other, space themselves, and maintain high fitness and.
This document is posted to help you gain knowledge. Please leave a comment to let me know what you think about it! Share it to your friends and learn new things together.
Transcript
Social Behavior
-- includes nonbreeding and breeding activities
-- how birds interact with each other, space themselves,and maintain high fitness and survival
-- feeding flocks common, especially in winter
-- allow greater protection from predators, facilitates foodgathering, saves energy from trying to keepindividual territories
-- some examples previously given: Harris’ Hawk, WesternGull and gull ‘gangs’, Double-crested cormorantsswimming in formation to herd schools of fish
Blackbirds, including starlings, red-winged blackbird, and gracklesare well known for their huge winter flocks that can number in thehundreds of thousands
Short-tailed Shearwater, Alaskaalaska.usgs.gov
Mixed species feeding flocks also common in winter
-- provides greater protection to all individuals
-- each species knows each others’ alarm calls
-- can form for just an hour or the day
-- may learn new foraging strategies by watching others
-- no interspecific competition for food as each species hasits own niche (e.g., warblers, chickadees, titmice,and woodpeckers feeding and moving together)
-- seabird feeding flocks with diving, dipping behaviors among different species
Feeding Guild
A group of species feeding on the same resource in different ways
flickr.com
Vultures along can strip a zebra carcass of all flesh in 30 minutes
Roosting flocks also possible
-- birds forage individually in day, flock together at onesite for night
-- crows and ravens, vultures, ibis, herons, blackbirds, gullsand some shorebirds especially known for this
-- many advantages:
1. Predator avoidance/protection2. Thermoregulation3. Information exchange4. Develop pair bonds
Pygmy NuthatchFamily Sittidae
Nuthatches drill their own cavities, use for winter roostingas well as breeding
naturalmoment.com
Roost cavities become important for thermoregulation at night in winter
Record roost for pygmy nuthatch in Flagstaff, AZ, winter 1981-82
10 winter social groups converged on one cavity from as far awayas 1.7 km, total in cavity was 167, most ever recorded
Gull ‘clubs’
Breeding and non-breeding season, gather at dusk or hang outall day
Non-breeders may establish pair bonds here, mate for life, practicebuilding nests, and build social skills
Behavioral Ecology in Birds
Field pioneered by Konrad Lorenz and Niko Tinbergen,1950s and 60s
Set foundation for modern behavioral studies
Lorenz (1903-1989) was an Austrian ornithologist
Famous for work on imprinting behavior in Greylag Geese
Lorenz is considered the ‘father of ethology’, or study of animal behavior
Besides research on imprinting behavior, also studied innate behavior and ‘fixed action patterns’
e.g., gull chicks always respond to red dot on adult bill by begging for food, pecking on spot to stimulate regurgitation of food by adult
Used models to illustrate how the behavior is innate