Bird Behaviour in Action
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the horbills are quite large birds used to feed on fruit and mainly insects,arachnids and small vertebrates.
but they are not used to kill aduld birds.
in this case an African Grey Hornbill (tockus nasutus) has cought and killed a social weaver.
"a strange behaviour"
Etosha National Park ,Namibia
original 3K file here:
I was observing a group of sea gulls next to the Yarra River when I took this shot.
I am sure you would have seen these postures and calls before.
I was also curious about these postures and their meanings.
Here you can see two common postures.
The gull in the front is showing the Forward Posture.
As the name implies, this posture is all about displaying a forward motion by holding the body roughly horizontal or slightly diagonally with the neck kinked characteristically.
The tail can sometimes be spread; the bill is either slightly opened or closed.
The Forward posture is used in the following situations:
1) hostile encounters
2) pair formation sequences
3) as a response to a bird approaching in flight
When used in hostile encounters on land, it often includes running towards an opponent, whereas in a pair formation sequence both gulls move parallel to each other
The Gull behind is doing the Mew Call
The Mew call is accompanied by a characteristic Arch-posture in which the head is held down and the wings are held slightly away from the body.
It is usually performed while walking but can be performed while standing, flying, or swimming as well.
The Mew call is used in both aggressive and non-aggressive situations:
Aggressive
1) In defense of food or territory, aimed at an opponent
2 )To attract a mate for support in territory defense
Non-aggressive
1) To attract a partner (also for courtship)
2) To call chicks that have wandered too far from the nest
3) To gather chicks for feeding or after they have been hiding after a disturbance
4) As a nest-relief invitation
5) As a call performed upon landing.
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Peaceful Sunday
Dove and Red-headed Finch.
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An incredibly beautiful woodpecker that is found in the Himalayan forests and maybe a few other pockets in the country. It has a rich yellow and green mixed color which I found to be spectacular. The bird is also quite large compared to many other woodpeckers I have seen. The behaviours are similar to the others, but then these birds do come to the ground. We have sighted them foraging on the lower canopies and sometimes middle canopy unlike a few which are exclusive to the higher canopy.
There is another Lesser Yellownape as well which I was fortunate enough to sight and shoot. Both are amazingly beautiful! The differences are clear, but both share the same color and feather patterns except for a patch of red for the Lesser Yellownape on the crown.
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and the merest suggestion of affection. As the amount of affection increases, the entertainment can be reduced proportionately. When the affection is the entertainment, we no longer call it dating. Under no circumstances can the food be omitted :-)
Miss Manners' Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behaviour
HPPT!!
prunus mume, pink japanese flowering apricot, 'Bonita', j c raulston arboretum, ncsu, raleigh, north carolina
Barn Owl - Tyto Alba
Like most owls, the barn owl is nocturnal, relying on its acute sense of hearing when hunting in complete darkness. It often becomes active shortly before dusk and can sometimes be seen during the day when relocating from one roosting site to another. In Britain, on various Pacific Islands and perhaps elsewhere, it sometimes hunts by day. This practice may depend on whether the owl is mobbed by other birds if it emerges in daylight. However, in Britain, some birds continue to hunt by day even when mobbed by such birds as magpies, rooks and black-headed gulls, such diurnal activity possibly occurring when the previous night has been wet making hunting difficult. By contrast, in southern Europe and the tropics, the birds seem to be almost exclusively nocturnal, with the few birds that hunt by day being severely mobbed.
Barn owls are not particularly territorial but have a home range inside which they forage. For males in Scotland this has a radius of about 1 km (0.6 mi) from the nest site and an average size of about 300 hectares. Female home ranges largely coincide with that of their mates. Outside the breeding season, males and females usually roost separately, each one having about three favoured sites in which to conceal themselves by day, and which are also visited for short periods during the night. Roosting sites include holes in trees, fissures in cliffs, disused buildings, chimneys and haysheds and are often small in comparison to nesting sites. As the breeding season approaches, the birds move back to the vicinity of the chosen nest to roost.
Once a pair-bond has been formed, the male will make short flights at dusk around the nesting and roosting sites and then longer circuits to establish a home range. When he is later joined by the female, there is much chasing, turning and twisting in flight, and frequent screeches, the male's being high-pitched and tremulous and the female's lower and harsher. At later stages of courtship, the male emerges at dusk, climbs high into the sky and then swoops back to the vicinity of the female at speed. He then sets off to forage. The female meanwhile sits in an eminent position and preens, returning to the nest a minute or two before the male arrives with food for her. Such feeding behaviour of the female by the male is common, helps build the pair-bond and increases the female's fitness before egg-laying commences.
Barn owls are cavity nesters. They choose holes in trees, fissures in cliff faces, the large nests of other birds such as the hamerkop (Scopus umbretta) and, particularly in Europe and North America, old buildings such as farm sheds and church towers. Buildings are preferred to trees in wetter climates in the British Isles and provide better protection for fledglings from inclement weather. Trees tend to be in open habitats rather than in the middle of woodland and nest holes tend to be higher in North America than in Europe because of possible predation.
This bird has suffered declines through the 20th century and is thought to have been adversely affected by organochlorine pesticides such as DDT in the 1950s and '60s.
Nocturnal birds like the barn owl are poorly monitored by the Breeding Bird Survey and, subject to this caveat, numbers may have increased between 1995-2008.
Barn owls are a Schedule 1 and 9 species.
Population:
UK breeding:
4,000 pairs
Europe:
110-220,000 pairs
RKO_9069.
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From the "senses" series: Vision
If someone sees something, they react. Cause-effect. According to Pavlov, reflexes could be conditioned. If you don't see, you don't react. But if vision is deprived from you and you know and watch that you don't see because someone doesn't want you to see, you react. Cause-effect.
A pair of Northern Gannets at their nest.
The male on the left had just returned and the female started to shake her head from side to side as if saying "Where have you been for all this time?"
The male then started to dart forward excitedly towards the female, beak agape,but never got too close.!
A few days later the female laid her first egg in the nest.
The head shaking is behaviour I have seen before but I have never managed to capture it on camera!.
Taken at RSPB Bempton.
Gonepteryx rhamni (known as the common brimstone) is a butterfly of the family Pieridae. It lives throughout the Palearctic zone and is commonly found across Europe, Asia, and North Africa. Across much of its range, it is the only species of its genus, and is therefore simply known locally as the brimstone. Its wing span size is 60 - 74 mm.
The brimstone relies on two species of buckthorn plants as host plants for its larvae; this influences its geographic range and distribution, as these plants are commonly found in wetlands. The adult brimstone travels to woodland areas to spend seven months overwintering. In spring when their host plants have developed, they return to the wetlands to breed and lay eggs] Both the larval and adult forms of the common brimstone have protective coloration and behaviour that decreases their chances of being recognised and subsequently preyed upon.
The adult common brimstone has sexual dimorphism in its wing coloration: males have yellow wings and iridescence while females have greenish-white wings and are not iridescent. This iridescence is affected by environmental factors.
Due to its innate sympathy and the particular characteristics of its behaviour, the woodpecker has jumped by force into history, in the literature and even more in the fantasy world of all ages.
One of 5 varieties of minivets in the forest we visited and a lifer!. Not the rarest, but definitely quite an uncommon one. It looks similar to the common Scarlet Minivet, but has a rosy frontside due to which it derives that name.
Similar behaviour as that of the other minivets except that it prefers small groups, usually 2 where both the male and female forage together. It is also a high canopy bird and prefers to come out to the open at the top!
ebird doesn't list the forest we visited as a native range of this bird, but since we sighted it during the non-migratory season, assume its resident there. The last trip we even sighted it nesting.
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We just couldn't believe this!
Many of you would have seen adult Grebe's doing the Weed Dance., an elaborate and beautiful 'Courtship' ritual
But what we have here are two Grebe chicks from the same family spontaneously performing (with all the same complex moves) the very same dance
They are young and immature., so this cannot be 'learnt behaviour' but instead somehow engrained into their DNA
We were taken by surprise and It was wonderful to watch!
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Not sure what,s going on here.At first i thought the ants were moving their larvae to another location,but the first larvae is clearly a plant hopper nymph! So moving plant hopper larvae for security,or food?
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First is a Cinnabar Moth Caterpillar, next a Soldier Beetle, then a Ladybird and a Hoverfly. Please try viewing large. Thank you....
A lack of any feeling about self or other, a mind-state that gives rise to boredom, rancor, apathy, and a passive, inert, or sluggish behaviour. Physically, acedia is fundamentally with a cessation of motion and an indifference to work; it finds expression in laziness, idleness, and indolence.
Sloth | Seven Deadly Sins Series: 4/7
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CREDITS
[BB] Knee Socks
Black Cats Poses - Bored in Space 2
*Bolson / Tattoo - Russel
Izzie's - LeLutka - Insomnia Frown Lines 75%
[ kunst ] - Anuket Septum Ring
[ kunst ] - Juniper necklace
[ kunst ] - Nose plaster
[omnis] BlackWidow/2 - ML - Right
Spoiled - Lewdy Gamer Shirt
TF: Machinist (F) :: Face : With Hollow
Plant and they will come!
This is just a record shot (I'd have liked to have gotten more of the wing in focus), as she wasn't for staying still, of the first common blue butterfly to visit my garden last year, after I planted bird's foot trefoil for my 'resident' leafcutter bees, and to attract common blue butterflies.
I was thrilled to watch her lay lots of eggs, which you can see her doing in this photo, all over the bird's foot trefoil ... and what amazing little structures the eggs are too---that's tomorrow's upload!
with an adult Spectacled Caiman in the background
Llanos Orientales in eastern Colombia
The lowest estimates I found of the number of these remaining in the wild vary between 250 and 500. We saw 2 of these.
From Wikipedia:
"The Orinoco Crocodile (Crocodylus intermedius) is a critically endangered crocodile. Its population is very small, and they can only be found in the Orinoco river basin in Venezuela and Colombia. Extensively hunted for their skins in the 19th and 20th centuries, it is one of the most endangered species of crocodiles. It is a very large species of crocodilian; males have been reported up to 6.8 m (22 ft 4 in) in the past, weighing over 900 kg (2,000 lb)] but such sizes do not exist today, 5.2 m (17 ft 1 in) being a more widely accepted maximum size. A large male today may attain 4.2 m (13 ft 9 in) in length and can weigh up to 450 kg (1,000 lb), while females are substantially smaller with the largest likely to weigh around 225 kg (496 lb). Sexual dimorphism is not as profound as in other crocodilian species.
The coloration is light even in adults.
The ecology of the Orinoco crocodile is poorly documented in the wild, mostly due to its small population. It is thought to have a more piscivorous diet with an opportunistic nature, resulting in generalist predatory behaviour. It is an apex predator and preys on a variety of birds, mammals and reptiles, including caimans on occasion. Its prey base is mostly large predatory fish, challenging the general view by locals complaining about crocodiles hunting local fish to very low numbers. Reproduction takes place in the dry season when the water level is low. It is a hole nester and digs holes in the sand for its clutch of eggs. The females guard the nests and young for several years."
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Bee-eaters spend around 10% of their day on comfort activities. These include sunning themselves, dust bathing and water bathing. Sunning behaviour helps warm birds in the morning, reducing the need to use energy to raise their temperature. It also has a social aspect, as multiple birds adopt the same posture. Finally, it may help stimulate parasites in the feathers, making them easier to find and remove.
Due to their hole-nesting lifestyle, bee-eaters accumulate a number of external parasites such as mites and flies. Together with sunning, bouts of dust bathing (or water bathing where available), as well as rigorous preening, keep the feathers and skin in good health. Bathing with water involves making shallow dives into a water body and then returning to a perch to preen
No, the yellow-jacket wasp has not been adopted by the bees, and has not decided to switch colonies. It is simply seeking a little protein at the expense of the honey bees. I saw a few wasps at the hives, but didn't see any successful predation.
Yesterday we were on a road trip to the mid-island in search of Long-tailed ducks, unfortunately, they were way across the channel, tiny dots in the seascape. The local Eagle family had them and other ducks in their sights but settled for a meal that the tide change offered.
The lip curling you see here is known as the Flehmen Response of rutting Deer. It is a behaviour where an animal curls back its upper lips exposing its front teeth, inhales with the nostrils and can hold this position for several seconds. It may be performed over an area of interest to the animal (e.g. urine or faeces). They usually do this with the neck stretched and the head held high in the air. Flehmen is performed by a wide range of mammals. The behaviour facilitates the transfer of pheromones and other scents into the vomeronasal organ located above the roof of the mouth.
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I was watching a group of Harbour (Common) and Grey Seals hauled out on the beach at Horsey, Norfolk during the first week of June when a big male Grey Seal caught my attention at the water's edge. It seemed to be holding down another smaller seal and when other seals approached it behaved aggressively towards them. The struggle continued for some time but the malevolent looking big bull clearly had the upper hand. Nov. - Dec. is the breeding seasons for Grey Seals on the east coast towards the latter part of which time male/male competition can be intense. This behaviour was, therefore, very unusual in that it was seen at a time of year when Grey Seals should not be competing (or mating). My thanks to Tim Melling for his explanation and interpretation concluding that the big size difference makes it likely that this behaviour was probably sexual aggression towards a non willing female.