Bird Behavior: An Overview
Bird Behavior:
An Overview
Birds do it too
Eat and eliminate
Clean themselves
Date and mate
Reproduce
Raise young
Build a home
Protect the home
Move
Behavior
Instinctual
Learned
Behavior
Physical
Social
Behavior
Daily
Seasonal
Daily Bird Behaviors: Feeding, Flying, Preening,
Communicating
Food Acquisition
Find Acquire Transport Prepare
• OR Store and Retrieve
Food Consumption
Eating for self
Eating for young
Eating for migration
Flying to/from food and rest areas
Bonaparte’s Gull
Flying Styles
Gliding or Soaring Coursing/steady flapping Intermittent flapping Bounding or undulating Hovering Quartering
Varied Flying Styles
Feather Care
Bird Feathers
Feather Care
To clean off dirt and parasites by picking, dusting, anting, or washing and drying
To realign and interlock To oil to reduce dryness
Benefits of feathers
Insulation Repel moisture Regulate body
temperature Provide aerodynamic
efficiency Used in courting displays
Whereabouts Danger pending Stay out of my territory “I like you; do you like me?”
Communicating
Seasonal Bird BehaviorCourting, Nest Building, Breeding, and Parenting
Courting
By displays By singing or dancing By swinging up and down By swirling up in the air By doing somersaults By preening each other By offering gifts By having created the best home By locking feet and swirling down together before
separating
Courting COURTING Displays
By males, groups of males, & sometimes females
Nest Building
Nest building materials
Natural and man-made
Twigs and sticks Grass and moss Leaves and mud Needles and fruit Spider webs Horse/Cow Hair Seed heads
Straws String/Twine Paper/Tissue Rubber bands Barbed wire Q-tips Tin foil and other
shiny objects
Copulating
Pelican Photo by Marcia Specht and Great Blue Heron by Sheryl Flatow
Genetic – sole biological parents of the young
Social – a male cooperates with a female in parenting even if not the parent of the young in the brood
Monogamy
Polygyny, Polyandry, Polygynandry
Polygyny: Male multiple partners. Little, if any parenting.
Polyandry: Female multiple partners. Lays eggs in separate nests. Males help incubate, hatch, and rear young.
Polygynandry : Both females and males of a few species may have multiple partners who may use the same nest for their eggs. Jealous behavior may occur resulting in loss of eggs.
Breeding OptionsTerritorial Male wins female Copulate Builds & defends their nest
Colonial Several pairs share and
protect breeding site They help find food
Cooperative/CommunalMore than 2 birds of same species help feed, protect, & rear young. May be offspring from prior season. May exhibit shared maternity, shared paternity, or both. Florida Scrub Jay is an example.
Parenting• Female or male only• Both Parents• Multi-females• Older siblings• Mother of another species
The End
Hopefully these sample bird behaviors have whetted your appetite to observe birds and ways they resemble us.
Visit websites of nature photographers such as Lou Newman for excellent photos and sometimes with stories to accompany them. http://www.lounewmanphotography.com/
Books The Sibley Guide to Bird Life and Behavior (2001) (National
Audubon Society editors Chris Elphick, John B. Dunning, Jr., and David Allen Sibley. NY: Alfred A. Knopf Publishers.
Pete Dunne’s Essential Field Guide Companion (2006) Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company
The Shorebird Guide (2006) by Michael O’Brien, Richard Crossley, & Kevin Karlson. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company Publishers.
Birds Do it Too: The Amazing Sex Life of Birds (1997) by Kit and George H. Harrison & Michael James Ruddet.
Journals Bird Behavior, David B. Miller, Editor-in-Chief
https://www.cognizantcommunication.com
Resources
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