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 Behavior Courting, 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 Options Territorial  Male wins female  Copulate  Builds & defends their nest Colonial  Several pairs share and protect breeding site  They help find food Cooperative/Communal More 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. 

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 Resources