Birds use the sense of smell to detect enemies

There are many species of birds that detect and avoid the enemy through the sense of smell, but the bird studies largely reject this possibility because of the traditional notion that birds do not know how to use the sense of smell. It was discovered that birds not only have the ability to perceive their enemies through chemical signals but also change their behavior based on the degree of perceived risk of being eaten.

Using the sense of smell to detect chemical signals can be very useful for birds in different situations, such as feeding and orientation. However, they can increase their chances of survival if they are aware of whether the odor smells they detect has a connection with the enemy. Lead researcher Luisa Amo de Paz explained that 'Birds can detect the presence of enemies thanks to their sense of smell'. As a biologist at the Natural History Museum of the Spanish National Research Council while conducting this study, Ms. Amo de Paz is currently working for the Dutch Institute of Ecology (NIOO). -KNAW).

The study published in the latest edition of Functional Ecology first shows evidence that birds can identify enemies using chemical signals. . According to researchers at the Natural History Museum of the Spanish National Research Council, this study 'opened up a promising new field of research in understanding aspects of behavior. birds, this is something that has been neglected so far. '

The sharpness of the sense of smell in specific birds (especially birds that are feeding in the holes in the trunk, like the sparrow species) is essential in knowing whether their main enemies (weasels) have found their way into their nests or are approaching the bird's nest, particularly due to the limited vision of birds in the nest.

An experiment was carried out with a population of corn finches feeding their babies in nest boxes of Miraflores de la Sierra in the Sierra de Guadarrama mountains, in the province of Marid.(Photo: ScienceDaily)

Experiment with corn finches

Researchers conducted an experiment with a population of corn finches feeding their babies in nest boxes of the Miraflores de la Sierra region in the Sierra de Guadarrama mountains in the province of Marid. Amo de Paz said the researchers placed the scent of ferrets (furo ferrets) into nest boxes when the chicks were 8 days old, and 'parents are more time consuming to get into the box for birds. They eat, and they approach the boxes more often without getting into the nest '.

According to the biologist, thanks to the images recorded from a camera set several meters away from the nest box, scientists can detect the number of times the chicks are fed, and deduce that parents give their chicks a regular feed though they spend a little time inside the nest when feeding their chicks. By spending a little time in the nest box, the parents have reduced the risk of being attacked by predators while still feeding their chicks normally.

Biological researchers have added the smell of the quail to other nest boxes to observe the effectiveness of the new smell in the behavior of corn finches, and they also add water to other nest boxes to Observe the effect caused by moisture. This proves that when birds detect a strange odor, like the smell of quail, they do not hesitate for a long time before flying into their nests, and they do not reduce the amount of time it takes for the chicks to eat. .

When the chicks were 13 days old, the scientists added a slightly equivalent odor to each box and measured the results again. Amo de Paz said that this was to test whether the fumes of ferrets affect the baby's physical condition, and showed that parents spend very little time in the nest. The conclusions show that the development of the chicks is not affected during the time they are brought before the predatory predators. So the researcher concluded that 'birds can detect chemical signs of predatory enemies and use these signals to quantify the risk of being attacked by predators .'