Eavesdropping nuthatches distinguish danger threats in chickadee a...( sometimes adding five 10 or 15 dees....)

, sometimes adding five, 10 or 15 dees. When the recordings were played back to other chickadees their response was related to the size and threat presented by the potential predator. Small, agile raptors such as the pygmy owl which can prey on small songbirds present a greater danger to the chickadees than does the great horned owl, a larger, less maneuverable raptor.

Chickadees and nuthatches are similar in size, occupy many of the same habitats, exist in mix-species flocks during the winter and are attacked by the same predators. To see if and how nuthatches responded to the chickadee alarm calls, Templeton placed a speaker at the base of trees in a forest where pairs of the nuthatches were present. He observed their behavior when he played chickadee calls warning about pygmy and great horned owls. All trials were conducted when no live chickadee were present so their behavior wouldnt influence the nuthatches.

The nuthatches exhibited strong mobbing behavior more of them responded, flew closer to the speaker and appeared to be more agitated by flicking their wings when they heard the small predator alarm than when they heard the large owl alarm.

"It turns out that these animals are pretty smart," said Templeton. "Knowing what kinds of predators are around could be a matter of life or death for them, so it pays for them to listen to the alarm calls of other species. That one animal has cracked the code and extracted the information from another species is pretty amazing."

He said this appears to be learned behavior because the mobbing calls of the two songbird species are very different.

"Mobbing seems to be a way of teaching birds which predators are dangerous. But we have no idea how nuthatches learn to interpret the chickadee calls."

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Contact: Joel Schwarz
joels@u.washington.edu
206-543-2580
University of Washington
19-Mar-2007


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