Complex society discovered in the vulturine guineafowl

NOVEMBER 4, 2019

by Max Planck Society

Multilevel societies have, until now, only been known to exist among large-brained mammals including humans, other primates, elephants, giraffes and dolphins. Now, scientists from the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior and the University of Konstanz report the existence of a multilevel society in a small-brained bird, the vulturine guineafowl (Acryllium vulturinum). The study, published in Current Biology, suggests that the birds can keep track of social associations with hundreds of other individuals—challenging the notion that large brains are a requirement for complex societies, and providing a clue as to how these societies evolved.

Multilevel societies occur when social units, such as pairs, of animals form groups that have stable membership, and these groups then associate preferentially with specific other groups. Because this requires the animals to keep track of individuals in both their own and other groups, the assumption has long been that multilevel societies should only exist in species with the intelligence to cope with this complexity. While many bird species live in groups, these are either open, lacking long-term stability, or highly territorial, lacking associations with other groups.

Vulturine guineafowl, however, present a striking exception: The researchers observed these birds, which are from an ancient lineage resembling dinosaurs, behaving highly cohesively without exhibiting the signature intergroup aggression that is common in other group-living birds. And they manage this despite having relatively small brains, even relative to other birds. "They seemed to have the right elements to form complex social structures, and yet nothing was known about them," says Danai Papageorgiou, lead author on the paper and a Ph.D. student at the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior.

Continued

Behavioral ecology: Personalities promote adaptability

Date:  April 8, 2019

Source:  Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München

Bold great tits lay their eggs earlier when under threat, the shy ones put it off. Such personality differences help maintain the biological variation essential for the survival of populations, as Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaet (LMU) in Munich biologists have now shown.

Bird populations can adapt to environmental change, as revealed by their flexible choice of the optimal time for rearing their chicks. Thus high temperatures induce them to begin nest building and egg-laying early in the year. In colder years, they tend to postpone the whole business until later. Natural selection favors such behavioral adaptability -- provided that the required variation is available, i.e. genetic variants are present that confer 'phenotypic plasticity' on local populations. A study of great tits (Parus major), carried out by LMU behavioral biologist Niels Dingemanse and his doctoral student Robin Abbey-Lee, has now shown that this adaptability is in part attributable to differences in character and 'personality' between individuals. Their findings appear in the online journal Nature Communications.

Continued

Mini video cameras offer peek at hard-to-observe bird behavior

Date:  September 12, 2018

Source:  American Ornithological Society Publications Office

Fledging behavior -- when and why baby birds leave the nest -- is something scientists know very little about. Rarely is someone watching a nest at just the right moment to see fledging happen. To get around this, the researchers behind a new study from The Auk: Ornithological Advancesdeployed miniature video cameras to monitor over 200 grassland bird nests in Alberta, North Dakota, Minnesota, and Wisconsin, and they found that fledglings' decision-making process is more complex than anyone guessed.

Christine Ribic from the U.S. Geological Survey and her colleagues tested two competing hypotheses about fledglings' decision making. Birds might leave the nest early in the day to maximize the amount of time they have to find a safe place to hide from predators before nightfall. Alternatively, once their siblings start to leave, the remaining birds might decide to stay in the nest longer to take advantage of reduced competition for the food their parents provide, resulting in spread-out fledging times. Video data analyzed by Ribic and her colleagues showed that the more siblings in a nest, the longer it took for all of them to fledge, consistent with the idea that some young may stay behind to take advantage of reduced competition after the first nestlings leave. Ribic and her co-authors discovered that 20% of nests took more than one day to completely finish fledging. Fledging behavior also varied between species and over the course of the breeding season, for reasons that remain unclear.

Continued

Many hands make light work and improve health, researchers have found

Date: November 18, 2015

Source: University of Exeter

Getting help with baby care could keep families healthier and extend their lives, according to a new study into bird behaviour.

Research into weaver birds in South Africa, carried out at the University of Exeter and published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, found that a heavy breeding workload led to increased free radical damage to cells, which can be associated with aging and ill health. However, where birds were in larger groups and the workload was shared, no increase in cell damage was found.

The team studied cooperative white-browed sparrow weaver birds in the Kalahari Desert during their breeding season and compared groups of birds that were not breeding with others that were raising chicks.

In the three weeks after hatching, adult birds work feverishly to bring chicks food and as a result they grow to 40 times their original size. Meanwhile, non-breeding birds live a life of relative leisure, with no hungry mouths to feed.

"We investigated oxidative stress, which occurs when free-radicals cause damage to cells. Antioxidants usually prevent this damage, but during hard work, free-radicals can overwhelm antioxidant protection," said lead researcher Dominic Cram, who is now based at the University of Cambridge.

"We found that the birds that were feeding nestlings often had weaker antioxidant defences and suffered from oxidative stress. However, in large groups where many birds assist with nestling care, the birds showed stronger antioxidants and lower free radical damage. So in larger groups many hands appear to have made light work."

Continued …

Fear of the cuckoo mafia: In fear of retaliation, birds accept and raise brood parasites' young

Date:

April 17, 2014

Source:

Max-Planck-Gesellschaft

Summary:

If a restaurant owner fails to pay the 'protection money' demanded of him by the mob, he can expect his premises to be trashed. Warnings like these are seldom required, however, as fear of the consequences is enough to make restaurant owners pay up. Similarly, mafia-like behavior is observed in parasitic birds, which lay their eggs in other birds' nests. If the host birds throw the cuckoo's egg out, the brood parasites take their revenge by destroying the entire nest. Consequently, it is beneficial for hosts to be capable of learning and to cooperate. Previously seen only in field observations, scientists have now modeled this behavior mathematically to confirm it as an effective strategy.

Continued

Bird Notes | With longer days comes different, sometimes aggressive, bird behavior Read more here: http://www.myrtlebeachonline.com/2014/03/11/4087171/bird-notes-with-longer-days-comes.html#storylink=cpy

BY GARY PHILLIPS — For The Sun News

With the onset of spring-like weather and the lengthening of daylight hours, seasonal changes are becoming evident all around us.

Native red maples (Acer rubrum) have been in bloom for a few weeks now, and native Carolina laurel-cherry (Prunus caroliniana) are also flowering. Many deciduous plants are sprouting new growth, and some insect species are emerging.

Spring is a time of change, and in addition to changes of plants and insects in evidence, many other animals are exhibiting their own seasonal awakenings, and those of the birds are perhaps the most easily observed.

Invariably, there are some bird behavioral changes, usually most notable in mockingbirds, bluebirds and cardinals that become a cause for distress in some folks.

Bird behavior is under hormonal control. When to migrate north or south; when to start the breeding season; when to fatten up for migratory treks or to survive winter are all influenced by the amount of light in a day, known as photoperiod.

Continued

Huddle Up: the Surprising Physics of Penguin Movements

When male emperor penguins face the minus-58-degrees-Fahrenheit (minus 50 degrees Celsius), 120-mph (200 km/h) winds of Antarctic winters, the birds rely on their neighbors' bodies to keep themselves — and the eggs that they protect in a pouch near their feet — alive and warm.

Maintaining a massive huddle of thousands of penguins may sound fairly simple, but sticking together in a pack so large turns out to be quite complicated: When one penguin moves a single step, the rest must also move to accommodate the open space and stay warm. In this particular species of penguin, males play the unusual gender role of incubating eggs, so it is especially crucial that they maintain warmth during cold winters. 

Read on ...

Light at Night, Melatonin and Bird Behavior

Oct. 2, 2013 — Low light levels, similar to those found in urban areas at night, can have a significant effect on melatonin production in birds at night. This suggests that melatonin could be mediating changes in bird behaviour at night. Reporting in BioMed Central's open access journal Frontiers in Zoology, the researchers suggest that altered melatonin production may cause birds to interpret increased light during the night as shorter nights.

Although the use of artificial light at night has had a broad range of positive benefits for human life, it has also shown to have negative impacts on certain behaviours and physiological processes in humans and animals. However, the research into the mechanisms behind the effects that increased light at night can have on wild animal populations remains limited.

In birds, light at night has resulted in a range of bird behaviour changes, including earlier activity in the mornings and changes in breeding patterns. It has been suggested that this may be due to an inability to detect how long days are, but the mechanism behind this is unknown. As melatonin has a significant role in the daily and seasonal cycles of behaviour and physiology, researchers tested how it was affected by artificial light levels in European blackbirds. To this end, the scientists exposed birds to low intensity light-at-night and looked at whether this altered the nocturnal production of melatonin and activity compared to birds that were exposed to near darkness at night.

Daily patterns of melatonin concentrations were decreased by low intensity light-at-night in both summer and winter. Combined with the observations of altered activity during the night, the group suggested that the light-induced decreases in melatonin production could result in an altered perception of day length, resulting in the birds behaving as if they were exposed to longer days when compared to birds kept under dark nights.

"Our findings may have important implications for understanding the control of seasonal processes, such as reproduction, in urbanized birds," said Davide Dominoni of Max Planck Institute for Ornithology and lead author of this paper.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/10/131002212206.htm

Behavior of Seabirds During Migration Revealed

Apr. 30, 2013 — The behaviour of seabirds during migration -- including patterns of foraging, rest and flight -- has been revealed in new detail using novel computational analyses and tracking technologies. 

Using a new method called 'ethoinformatics', described as the application of computational methods in the investigation of animal behaviour, scientists have been able to analyse three years of migration data gathered from miniature tracking devices attached to the small seabird the Manx Shearwater (Puffinus puffinus). 

The Manx Shearwater is currently on the 'amber' list of UK Birds of Conservation Concern. Up to 80% of the world population breeds in the UK, travelling 20,000km each year in their migrations to South America and back. 

In a continuing long-term collaboration, researchers at UCL and the University of Oxford collected data over three consecutive years. In this study, published in the Royal Society journal Interface, they show that the migration of the Manx Shearwater contains a complex pattern of three behavioural states; rest, flight and foraging. 

Results indicate that in winter, birds spend much less time foraging and in flight than in breeding season. Also, a much larger proportion of birds' time in the southern hemisphere was spent at rest -- probably a reflection of their release from the demands of reproduction and also the increased costs of flight during the winter. 

Dr Robin Freeman, from the UCL COMPLEX (Centre for Mathematics and Physics in the Life Sciences and Experimental Biology), and first author of the study, said: "Understanding the behaviour of these birds during migration is crucial for identifying important at-sea locations and for furthering conservation efforts. By tracking the movements, foraging behaviour and environmental drivers of such species, and developing new techniques to do so is critical as they continue to be subject to environmental and anthropogenic pressure."

Continued: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/04/130430194403.htm

Male Birds Like Nice Nests

Ryder Diaz, ISNS Contributor

Date: 09 April 2013 Time: 05:23 PM ET

 (ISNS) -- One bird species may have advice on how to get its dads to take a more active role in parenting: mothers should build a snazzy crib.

Female blue tits that construct bigger nests and decorate them with fragrant plants have male partners that are more willing to invest in raising chicks, Spanish researchers report in the journal Behavioral Ecology.

A big, well-decorated home may send a signal to males about the health of their partners, said Gustavo Tomás of the Estación Experimental de Zonas Áridas in Madrid, and co-author on the study.

Females in many animal species are often believed to be the picky sex when it comes to choosing a mate. That’s because females usually devote more time and energy than males to raising their offspring. 

A female blue tit – which is about the size of an adult hand, from beak to tail – picks her partner based on his colorful blue and yellow plumage and the sweetness of his song. The better looking and sounding a mate, the better the chances he won’t be teeming with parasites and that the couple will have healthy chicks. 

But the research team found that males might also judge their mates.

“It was traditionally thought that only males need to show of their quality,” said Tomás. “Now we’re revealing it’s not that simple. It’s an interaction between sexes.“

Different bird species divide the work of building nests in different ways.  Female blue tits work alone to build nests, although males may add feathers later on. That means the nest may provide a window to the female's health.

Continued:  http://www.livescience.com/28587-male-birds-like-nice-nests.html

Unusual Coal tit behaviour

Coal tits try to feed and revive dead relative

April 2013. Christine Cassidy has sent us some photos of some very unusual behaviour of some Coal tits trying to feed and apparently revive a dead bird.

"On returning home recently, I found a dead Coal tit lying on my patio; it must have hit against my French doors (I have a wind chime up to try and prevent this from happening), although it may have been chased by the resident sparrowhawk that would have resulted in it hitting the doors.

Two adult Coal tits tried to feed and apparently

revive the dead bird. Courtesy of Christine Cassidy.

Within a couple of seconds I noticed a Coal tit carrying food to the dead bird, then another Coat tit arrived (both parents), the male started to kick the dead bird with its feet, as the mother continued to try and bring food to it. This behaviour went on for about 15 minutes until I could no longer watch as both parents appeared to be getting very stressed, I decided it was time to lift the dead bird. I have never witnessed behaviour like this ever before."

 

Similar behaviour in penguins
Coincidentally, Wildlife Extra has just reviewed the recently released DVD of 'Penguins: Spy in the Huddle'; During the scenes in the Antarctic, an Emperor penguin chick which becomes separated from its mother and succumbs to the extreme cold; the mother finds the corpse and tries to connect to the dead frozen rigid chick by forcing it into her pouch, whilst another penguin encourages her; reminiscent of the images of elephants stroking the bones of dead relatives.

Do let us know if you have witnessed similar behaviour. 

http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/news/coal-tit-behaviour.html

Clamorous City Blackbirds: Birds Can Sing Louder at Higher Frequencies to Make Themselves Heard Over Traffic Noise

Jan. 11, 2013 — Animals have developed a variety of strategies for dealing with increasing noise pollution in their habitats. It is known, for example, that many urban birds sing at a high pitch to differentiate their song from the low-frequency sound of road traffic. However, as scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology discovered, this is just a useful side effect. The real reason for this behaviour is that songs at a higher pitch are also automatically louder. The birds can make themselves heard far better in city noise by increasing the volume of their song than by raising its frequency.

Despite the numerous unfavourable environmental conditions they encounter there, many wild animals have colonised cities as a new habitat. In cities they must deal with greater numbers of humans and with more light and noise pollution than they encounter in rural settings. However, the urban habitat also offers certain advantages, for example a more abundant supply of food and new breeding options. Many animals have thus adapted surprisingly well to city life.

To attract mating partners and defend their territories, urban robins sing in the latter night when the traffic noise decreases after the evening rush. Many other bird species, including blackbirds, sing in urban environments at a higher pitch. So their song is easier to detect in the lower-frequency traffic noise.

Continued:  http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/01/130111110916.htm

'Monster' bird reveals dark side

Shoebill chick is filmed attacking its younger sibling

Aggressive bullying between bizarre-looking shoebill chicks has been filmed for the first time.

The encounter was captured at Bangweulu wetlands near Kasanka, in northern Zambia, Africa.

Wildlife filmmakers were surprised to witness an older chick attacking its younger sibling while their mother was foraging away from the nest.

The birds are rare subjects for study because their swamp breeding grounds are very difficult to access.

The BBC/Discovery team's aim was to shed light on the species by documenting intimate behaviour of shoebill parents and young at the nest.

Siblicide, the phenomenon of offspring killing their siblings, is common among many larger birds.

"This behaviour had previously been recorded in shoebills (Balaeniceps rex) but we hadn't planned on seeing it," explained director Alex Lanchester, who describes the shoebill as "prehistoric-looking".

Continued and video: http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/20938650

Wis. couple says pet chicken alerted them to blaze

MILWAUKEE (AP) — A Wisconsin couple says clucks, not fire trucks, helped them escape a blaze at their home.

Dennis Murawska, 59, said a pet chicken named Cluck Cluck woke his wife Susan Cotey, 52, with loud clucking from its cage in the basement two floors below about 6:15 a.m. Thursday. The couple's two cats also were running around the main floor.

Murawska said he had been half awake but didn't know about the fire because the smoke alarms hadn't gone off. He realized something was wrong when his wife got up.

"The chicken gets quite vocal when she gets excited," he said.

Cluck Cluck came from a nearby farm in Alma Center, about 135 miles east of Minneapolis, Murawska said. When the chicken began wandering over to his house, his neighbor said he could kill it because it wasn't producing any eggs. But Murawska felt sorry for Cluck Cluck because she had a mutated foot and decided to keep her. He fed the bird and built a coop, and then his wife let Cluck Cluck into the basement on cold nights.

"I spent way more money than I ever should've," Murawska said by telephone. "I guess it paid off."

The couple escaped, and firefighters found the chicken in its cage and one of the cats alive in the basement. Another cat hasn't been found and is presumed dead, Murawska said. The couple and their surviving cat checked into a Black River Falls hotel, while Cluck Cluck is staying with the neighbor who used to own her.

Alma Center Fire Chief Jeff Gaede said the fire started in the attic of the attached garage and was not suspicious. The house was a total loss, but it could have been worse — if not for the chicken.

"We are used to hearing about a dog or cat or something, but we never heard of a chicken waking up a resident for a fire," Gaede said. "That's pretty amazing."

http://news.yahoo.com/wis-couple-says-pet-chicken-alerted-them-blaze-165719848.html;_ylt=AoxsGkHKoADkT56YjQnJ4JztiBIF;_ylu=X3oDMTNxYjVmajVpBG1pdANUb3BTdG9yeSBPZGRVU1NGBHBrZwNkZGY3NjUzNy00MjliLTNjMzctYTIxNS05ZTlkZDFiM2U1ZjAEcG9zAzUEc2VjA3RvcF9zdG9yeQR2ZXIDNGI4OWQ4YzEtNTE0My0xMWUyLWE2YzYtNjRkZjhiYWEwODAx;_ylg=X3oDMTFtOW42ZDltBGludGwDdXMEbGFuZwNlbi11cwRwc3RhaWQDBHBzdGNhdANob21lfG9kZARwdANzZWN0aW9ucw--;_ylv=3

Hatching Order Influences Birds' Behavior

Dec. 7, 2012 — The hatching order of birds influences how they behave in adult life according to research from the Lancaster Environment Centre. Dr Ian Hartley and Dr Mark Mainwaring (LEC) are the authors of the study in Animal Behaviour, which looked at how the birds' behaviour was affected by the way their parents cared for them as hatchlings.

They found that the youngest members of zebra finch broods are more adventurous than their older siblings in adult life.

Dr Hartley said that the study showed for the first time that hatching order influences birds' "behavioural repertoires" in adulthood.

Hatching eggs over a period of time, rather than all at once, is known as "hatching asynchrony" and occurs when eggs are incubated as soon as they are laid. For a zebra finch, this means that birds born up to four days apart can share the same nest and must compete for food.

The researchers experimentally controlled hatching synchrony within clutches, so that some clutches hatched simultaneously, while others hatched over a period of days. They then tested the behaviour of over one hundred offspring as adults. They found the youngest birds from asynchronously hatched clutches explored their environment more widely.

Continued:  http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/12/121207094343.htm

Baby of brood is 'best explorer' in zebra finches

The birds are named for their black and white markings

The youngest members of zebra finch broods "explore more" than older siblings in adult life, say scientists.

Researchers investigated how the birds' behaviour was affected by the way their parents cared for them as hatchlings.

The team studied broods where females lay and incubate a clutch of eggs over a period of days, resulting in a size hierarchy within the clutch.

They found the youngest birds were more likely to explore their environment as adults in search of food.

The study, published in Animal Behaviour, tested over 100 captive zebra finches' exploratory behaviour to see whether hatching order, and consequently parental investment, affected their behaviour in adulthood.

Late hatched birds are smaller than their older siblings, and it is the larger hatchlings that "get the lion's share" when parents bring in food "because they can reach up higher and beg better," explained research team member Dr Ian Hartley from Lancaster University.

Continued:  http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/20546860

Clever jays switch food-finding tactics

Jays demonstrate "flexible tactics" by switching between storing food and stealing from others' stashes, scientists have found.

The woodland birds are known as the shy members of the notoriously intelligent corvid family.

But birds were observed boldly stealing food from subordinates' hiding places in the University of Cambridge study.

Researchers found that the jays' strategy was dependent on the relative social rank of their opponent.

The results are published in the journal Animal Behaviour.

Eurasian jays live in woodlands and feed primarily on acorns. Past studies by the University of Cambridge team have highlighted the birds' remarkable ability to plan for the future by storing thousands of the nuts and returning to them later.


Continued: http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/19660267



More information on the jay ( Garrulus glandarius ):

http://www.rspb.org.uk/wildlife/birdguide/name/j/jay/

http://www.garden-birds.co.uk/birds/jay.htm

COLLINS: When do birds migrate for winter?

More than 300 bird species found in North America during the summer will make their way to Latin America or the Caribbean for our winter months, some covering distances of nearly 7,000 miles. Parks, backyards, and nature refuges across the country will host these winged visitors for the next few weeks as the birds make their way to their fall and winter destinations.

Migration is a fascinating feature of bird behavior. Besides the amount of daylight, it appears that age, sex, weather conditions, and the availability of food, water, and shelter are the major factors that influence migratory behavior.

While migration is still not completely understood, it appears that some birds orient themselves by the stars on clear nights while others seem to have a built-in magnetic compass. Some birds travel over large bodies of water, and in doing so lose one-fourth to one-half of their body weight. In order to survive this grueling trip, birds accumulate fat prior to migration. This physiological change helps the birds maintain their energy reserves.


Continued: http://www.gjfreepress.com/article/20120914/COMMUNITY_NEWS/120919997/1062&parentprofile=1062