bird behaviour

bird behaviour

Barn Swallow

Rufus fantail sitting by its nestFor years I thought these birds were Rufous Fantails.  But Sue Laing, a reader very kindly wrote to me correctly pointing out that they are actually barn swallows.

A pair of Barn Swallows flew all the way from some shrubs across the open car park and stopped right in front of Ron one morning.  They twittered, saying hello, spent a few more moments with him before returning from whence they came.  I have

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Mothers' Problems Affect Even Bird Kids

Baby magoue Wendy being fed mother magpie VickyA recent study has found that the social environment of mother quails has a direct influence on the growth and the behaviour of their young.

The research was performed by Floriane Guibert and Cecilia Houdelier at the CNRS-Universite de Rennes 1 in France, together with researchers at the INRA in Nouzilly, France and with Austrian scientists including Erich Mostl of the University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna.

Some people are surprised to hear that quails (see picture of a family of quails in our back yard below) are able to distinguish one another, let alone that they form close relationships with other quails. From our observations here at WingedHearts.org, we've found that birds as small as thornbills, pardalotes and wrens have no trouble recognising each other,
 
 
While many have known for a long while that disruption of the birds' social environment causes them stress. The researching team has shown that changing the composition of groups of quails housed together causes the birds to behave more aggressively towards one another. The level of steroid hormones (corticosterone) in their blood also increases when their group composition is disrupted.   When the mothers were subjected to social stress of this kind the eggs they lay were found to have significantly higher levels of testosterone. 
 
These results are consistent with previous findings from other groups, which showed that House sparrows, American quail familycoots and Common starlings lay eggs with more testosterone when they breed in dense colonies than when they nest in isolation.

But the new work has also shown that the eggs of females under social stress hatch later and the chicks grow more slowly after hatching, at least for the first three weeks.
 
We've noticed with magpie and butcherbird clutches that when our mother birds friends Vicky (see top picture where baby magpie Wendy is being fed by mother Vicky magpie), HarrieButchie have been going through a period stress they eggs hatched much later than their counterparts across the valley and their chicks were also slower in developing.  The stress can be caused through harsh climate, strained relations with neighbouring clans, death in the family of a child, or partner. Once when we were away for five weeks during their normal breeding period, even though we had organised carers to refresh their water bowls and feed them  once a day (so they would not go without in the winter drought), our bird so stressed by our absence that they delayed having their clutch till after we returned. Their joy and relief at seeing us return was unmistaken.
 
 
 
Sources:

http://www.medindia.net/news/Even-Bird-Kids-Affected-By-Mothers-Social-L... by Tanya Thomas

Veterinärmedizinische Universität Wien (2010, December 28). Parents' social problems affect their children -- even in birds. ScienceDaily. Retrieved January 6, 2011, from http://www.sciencedaily.com­/releases/2010/12/101227083745.htm
 
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How to Speak Magpie - 1

One of the things that has amazed me, and amazed me over and over again, is the intelligence of Australian Magpies. They know how to talk to us, but do we know how to understand what they are saying? I have learned a few "phrases" in magpie language since meeting our Maggie Magpie, and I want to tell you one today that I learned from Maggie's wife Vicky.

I call this the J-phrase. Vicky has used it at least twice with Gitie and me. She might have used it even more than that, but we perhaps didn't notice and Vicky would probably have thought how dense these humans can be at times.

Here it is: Your magpie friend flies towards you, then flies at a very slow speed in a half-circle around you, about three metres away; then she stops:

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Breaking Through The Communication Barrier With Birds

by Francesca Doria (British Columbia)
 
 
In spite of all our New Year’s wishes, 2008 hadn’t begun well for my sister and I. Our Mum was bone-marrow transplanted and had been through a hard time, and our cat Émile, that had shared half of our lives with his endless care and reassuring love, was about to die of kidney failure. He had held out to help our mother and the two of us, but now he was wearing out, silently fading away. At the time our mother’s house had been restored, my sister and I had lived in until the inner works had started, so we had to move to our own flat where our mum already dwelt.
 
While I was staying with our mother and Émile, my sister Paola got back to the big house to tidy up and put in order everything. She immediately called me, informing that there was a jay she was feeding every day on my window sill and a pair of magpies building their nest on the top of our secular magnolia tree.
 
At first I was thrilled: I had always loved those elegant, intelligent, funny and noisy birds, and that news had surpassed my wish. But being in anxious state of mind, I nearly forgot both magpies and the friendly jay, until I came back home along with our mum, Émile and our other four cats.
 
The magpies were still at work: the male brought branches and other items, the female observed/examined them carefully, tried them out, sometimes discharged them, and he flew back and forth trying to find the best things to fit.
 
 
magpie nest in tree
 
 
 
The jay was still coming, curiously watching the new incomers. There also was a couple of large hooded crows, that were the undisputed owners of that territory, from a bird’s point of view.
 
We came back home on 4th March 2008: Émile made a huge effort to visit once again all the rooms of the house; although many things had changed dramatically (my sister’s room had a different entrance, one of the bathrooms had been rebuilt and much more) he recognized his house, blessed it and stood with us quietly and warmly as he had always done.
 
On 16th March he was put to sleep: until that day the sky had been beautifully crystalline and blue, the sun had shone bright, the moon at night was big and white in a starry sky, the sea was stunningly navy blue and glittering with sun sparkling, there were breathtaking sunsets. But that day the sky grew dark, and heavy drops of rain began to fall. They got heavier and heavier, like a machine gun; although I was dazed with grief, I couldn’t help thinking of the poor birds outside, especially the pair of magpies, whose nest was under that torrential rain. The female sat on her eggs and never moved; the male brought her food.
 
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Magpie Inheritance

Maggie Magpie and family with butcherbird friends
Maggie magpie and Butch butcherbird families

Until we met our magpies I had never really thought about animals having complex social systems. It’s pretty easy to think of animals as “dumb animals”! But our Maggie, sadly no longer with us, changed all that. By ‘adopting’ us into his family and introducing us to so many new friends of many bird species, Maggie opened a new world to us. All around us, birds (and, as stories from others show, other animals too) are conducting complex friendships, negotiations, and deals; they make promises, work to find good ‘positions’ in the world for their kids, and much more.

We humans get a bit uneasy when we discover we aren’t quite as far advanced beyond other animals as we like to think we are; laws of inheritance are a case in point. Surely no other animal has inheritance laws?

Well, there are clearly defined magpie inheritance laws. The countryside around our house is divided up in various ways by the various species. Magpies have one ‘map’ of the territory, on which they define the boundaries between their lands. The two species of butcherbirds here, pied and grey, share a single map between them. In other words, the magpies ignore the butcherbirds sharing their territories and vice versa, but the pied butcherbirds and the grey butcherbirds very much do take notice of each other and refuse to allow the other species into their zone. The butcherbird system has its own complexities, which I haven’t completely worked out, but I think I can tell you some details about magpie inheritance laws that might help you make sense of magpie activities around your place when a magpie dies.

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