1. Bird Behavior: An Overview Bird Behavior: An Overview

2. Birds do it too Eat and eliminate Clean themselves Date and mate Reproduce Raise young Build a home Protect the home Move

3. Behavior Instinctual Learned

4. Behavior Physical Social

5. Behavior Daily Seasonal

6. Daily Bird Behaviors : Feeding, Flying, Preening, Communicating

7. Food Acquisition  Find  Acquire  Transport  Prepare OR  Store and  Retrieve

8. Food Consumption Eating for self Eating for young Eating for migration

9. Flying to/from food and rest areas Bonaparte’s Gull

10. Flying Styles  Gliding or Soaring  Coursing/steady flapping  Intermittent flapping  Bounding or undulating  Hovering  Quartering

11. Varied Flying Styles

12. Feather Care

13. 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

14.  Whereabouts  Danger pending  Stay out of my territory  “I like you; do you like me?” Communicating

15. Seasonal Bird Behavior Courting, Nest Building, Breeding, and Parenting

16. 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

17. Courting COURTING  Displays By males, groups of males, & sometimes females

18. Nest Building

19. 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

20. Copulating Pelican Photo by Marcia Specht and Great Blue Heron by Sheryl Flatow

21. 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

22. 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.

23. 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.

24. Parenting Female or male only Both Parents Multi-females Older siblings Mother of another species

25. 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/

26. 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 https://www.cognizantcommunication.com Resources