Your thought please

FUDGEY · #1 (**permalink**) 16-09-2011, 08:17 AM

At my hide there is usually 150 birds at a time right now, the bulk of them are Green and Chaffinch and Great, Coal and Blue Tits along with quite a few Jays. A Sparrowhawk attacks about 10 times a day and the small birds are very flightly because of this. After the Hawk has been through no small birds appear for at least 10 minutes. Ive also noticed that the small birds regularly alarm call by mistake (for example when a Jay or Stock Dove comes in) which in turn makes all the birds disperse rather quickly, but they come back to the food after about 30 seconds. The pattern is that the Tits always come back to the feeders first then the finches follow another 30 seconds or so later. Once the Finches are in they bully the Tits away from most of the feeders. Now I think Ive noticed something here that is quite interesting. I am pretty sure that at least one Coal Tit alarm calls even when no predator is coming so that it can disperse the finches and grab a few sun flower hearts before they return. When it is a genuine mistake by a bird alarm calling the Coal Tits take around 30 seconds to come back, but when there is no sign of a predator or something that could be mistaken for a predator, the Coal Tit does the alarm call and is in at the feeder straight away after the Finches have fled. I know this does not make sense for a bird to cry wolf, but do you think I might have picked up on something here?

tigertom · #2 (**permalink**) 16-09-2011, 08:42 AM

I have seen this on my feeders but in my case it starlings doing the false alarm calls what happens is at times when there is a lot of starling feeding one of the ones that can not get to feeder, will do this and as soon as rest scatter dive stright in,
I have even had one last year that would mimic the call of a buzzard then do alarm call this one was a very good mimic as well cought me out few times, till I got on to it the sound of the buzzard mewin was not quite right comeing seamingly from my roof

MIKE

htcdude · #3 (**permalink**) 16-09-2011, 08:54 AM

That's very crafty of the Coal Tit! What a great little schemer

I've never had time to watch birds behaviour for any length of time so it's great to hear of your posts from time to time

Nige

~T~ · #4 (**permalink**) 16-09-2011, 09:10 AM

I posted about a male blackbird doing a similar behaviour during the summer. It would alarm call as it flew off with a beak full of raisins from my garden. At first I thought there was some hidden predator spotted as it flew off but it would return soon after for more food and repeat this behaviour several times in a short period of time. I came to the conclusion that it would call to scare off any other blackbirds (or maybe any birds) that would potentially nab the rest of the raisins while he was away, in effect crying wolf like you say Fudgey.

FUDGEY · #5 (**permalink**) 16-09-2011, 11:35 AM

Great observations folks and thanks for replying. I thought Id get doubters on my case so its good to see others have noticed similar things

RoyW · #6 (**permalink**) 16-09-2011, 03:04 PM

An interesting observation. There could perhaps be some other explanation, but I see no reason why individual birds can not learn to take advantage of 'crying wolf'.

I know that you have posted before syaing that you are basically against bird ringing because you don't think that it is worthwhile, but this is on of the types of situation where ringing with coloured rings would potentially provide a lot of information about bird behaviour (eg. whether individuals of the same species behave differently at the feeders, and whether it is only one individual that does this + whether it does it every time or just when there is no room at the feeder).

rossy · #7 (**permalink**) 17-09-2011, 12:14 PM

intresting fudgey, but over the years the one bird that ive noticed that gives out an alarm call is the blue tit. after a few moments normally a bird of prey will appear, rossy.

actionfinch · #8 (**permalink**) 17-09-2011, 04:44 PM

I find the chaffinches very 'edgy'.. they come down to the feeders and on the ground , along with the sparrows, but then they all would fly off into the bushes at the bottom of the garden. I see no other bird come to the feeders during this brief display, i hear nothing either .Strange to watch , but after reading your thread fudgey i might see if i could see the same thing.