Premium
Distress Calling by Woodland Birds: Seasonal Patterns, Individual Consistency and the Presence of Conspecifics
Author(s) -
GreigSmith P. W.
Publication year - 1984
Publication title -
zeitschrift für tierpsychologie
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.739
H-Index - 74
eISSN - 1439-0310
pISSN - 0044-3573
DOI - 10.1111/j.1439-0310.1984.tb01351.x
Subject(s) - woodland , distress , consistency (knowledge bases) , ecology , psychology , geography , biology , computer science , artificial intelligence
and Summary Woodland birds of 20 species were captured in mist‐nets in winter (September to February) and summer (April—August) and scored for whether or not they made distress calls while being handled. Birds of only two species showed significant tendencies to be consistent in calling or failing to call when recaptured, but most species had weak trends in. the same direction. Some species changed seasonally in the tendency to call, but there was no general pattern. In winter, but not summer, the incidence of calling was correlated across species with an index of the number of conspecifics likely to hear the call, but there was no comparable correlation with variations within species. In the long‐tailed tit, calling was associated with struggling, and with eyelid colour, which reflects a bird's mood. This implies that calling may be directed at a captor as well as at flock companions.