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Stealing is not an uncommon behavior among birds, as anyone who has tried eating french fries on the beach will confirm. In fact, many birds are quite skilled at bold and brazen theft.
Scientists have documented a variety of bird species, including the magpie, bowerbird, and black kite, and looted everything from discarded plastic to expensive jewelry to decorate their nests. And then there are the birds that want feathers and go to great lengths to get their beaks.
Feathers from dogs, raccoons and even humans have been found in the nests of birds that scientists believe better insulate the nests. For a long time, scientists assumed that birds needed to collect shed feathers or clean them from mammal carcasses. However, a new study Published last week in the journal Ecology, It shows that many bird species, including kingfishers and titmouse, not only clean feathers, but also steal it.
The study, which is based largely on analysis of YouTube videos, shows numerous examples of birds pulling tufts of hair from living mammals, including humans. This phenomenon, which the study’s authors refer to as “kleptotrichy,” has been well documented by bird watchers on the web, but this is the first time scientists have officially recognized it.
“This is another example of something that has been overlooked in the scientific literature but is widely known in the birding and bird feeding community,” said Henry Pollock, a postdoctoral researcher in ornithology at the University of Illinois and co-author of the new book. to work.
Last spring, Dr. When Pollock attended her university’s annual spring bird count, a tufted tit caught her eye. It was floating next to a raccoon sleeping soundly on a tree branch, getting closer and closer to it. Then, Dr. To amuse Pollock, the little bird began plucking tufts of the raccoon’s fur. The tit managed to steal 20 beakfuls of raccoon fur without waking him.
After witnessing this cute theft, Dr. Pollock began scanning the scientific literature to see if anything similar had been documented before.
He found 11 cases of birds stealing hair from living mammals alone; among these were reports of honey-eating individuals collecting hair from koalas, and one. observation A tit plucking hair from the tail of a red squirrel in 1946. Dissatisfied, Dr. Pollock began looking for examples of this behavior outside of the scientific literature. This was much more efficient. A simple YouTube search yielded nearly a hundred videos of birds flying with mammalian fur. Dr. Ninety-three percent of the videos Pollock found depicted a tufted tit plucking hair from domestic dogs, and people (in this case without much success).
The remaining seven percent of the videos featured the bird family Parids, which includes tits, chickadees, and titmouses, sneaking up on them and stealing hair from them. raccoons, cats, dogs and in a video North American hedgehog. Dr. Pollock realized that this behavior was not only common among Parids, but was also well known among birders enthusiastic.
“I’ve seen it in person,” said Daniel Baldassarre, an assistant professor at SUNY Oswego who studies the behavioral ecology of urban birds. “I used to live in a place where I had bird feeders on my patio railings and my yellow lab was sitting on the deck and nightingales would land on it and pull its fur right away,” he said. to work. “The cutest thing you’ve ever seen.”
Dr. Baldassarre is not surprised that kleptotricity appears to be common among Parids because the birds in this family are “the kind that would resolve this behavior. They are very brave, inquisitive and smart.”
Both Dr. Baldassarre and Dr. Pollock suspects that the birds are doing these stealing acts to isolate their nests. Dr. The tufted tit and other Parids “nest in early spring when the weather is still quite cold, so being able to keep the nest warm is absolutely essential,” said Baldassarre. A scientific literature search of the nests of 51 Parid species found mammalian hair in 44 of them. All seven species with furless burrows live in areas with warmer climates.
Dr. Pollock hopes that further research will help scientists determine the costs and benefits of kleptotricity and how common it is among birds. He also hopes that this work will demonstrate the value of community knowledge and other non-traditional sources of knowledge.
“As a scientist, you must be open to exploring alternative sources of information. I think the usefulness of popular literature is often under-appreciated, and especially in the birding community.”
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