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