The song of the bird watching

Troops on guarding enemy territory keep the radio in regular contact with colleagues to make sure everything is normal and safe to operate. New research by Dr. Andy Radford of the School of Biological Sciences shows that this is also a feature in the bird world.

The black-and-white shrews are small birds that live in 3-15 flocks in the Kalahari desert, Africa. They use 95% of their hunting time on the ground, searching for prey under sand. In contrast, they are hunted by raptors, mammals, and snakes.

The community of high pitched birds in the field of study is practiced to be familiar with human presence, a necessity to observe and record them at a distance of only a few feet. This allows Radford to determine the number of successful prey hunts by recording the percentage of prey captured. In addition, the tall thrush was trained to jump on a scale. Since then it is possible to determine their weight many times a day, the basis for reaching a precise and regular estimate of the status of these birds.

About 30% of the time, the hunting group had a guard parked on high, actively searching for other predators. The guard informs the other children of its presence by sound signal, often called the "watch bird song ." Because tall birds often look for prey in niches, they cannot determine the presence of a bird on duty with their eyes without stopping hunting; the bird's song guarded them to allow them to maximize their hunting time.

The black-and-white shaggy bird guard is guarding.(Photo: www.monkeyboy.ws)

By turning on different recordings for the birds, Radford found that they made more food in response to the watchful bird's song. One reason is that these foraging people spend less time paying attention to other predators, so there's more time to look for food. However, they also change behavior in three important ways. First, by spreading over a large area, the individual in the herd has little access to the food area that has been exploited by other members. Second, on a larger area, they have more food choices and therefore better quality food areas can be found. Third, because each individual does not have to look up often, hunting time can take longer and is less interrupted, which is very beneficial when chasing mobile prey.

Natural selection shows that individuals should act selfishly. However, from this result, it can be seen that the bird song guarding represents a collaborative behavior . The presence of guard birds increases the survival rate of the same herd, thus leading to larger herd size, while improving the chances of survival when attacked or the ability to repel opponents from herd territory. In contrast, watch birds are also beneficial when the successful hunting rate of their offspring increases.

In addition, members of a closely related group share a large amount of genes, and guardians benefit from reproducing from an enhanced survival rate. The next thing to check is whether the guarded birds are different in reliability. So it's time to depart for the Kalahari desert for a few weeks to study.