Keep those updates coming, Jane!

I'm fascinated by the whole subject of nest defense.  When I was working 
with Kestrel nestboxes in Mass. over the course of a few years, I was 
surprised to see the great range in behavior in response to our climbing 
up the ladder to check on and/or remove the babies for banding.  Some 
pairs were very aggressive, screaming loudly, dive-bombing us repeatedly 
and sometimes bonking us on the head.  Other pairs scrammed into hiding 
as soon as we appeared and stayed away until we left.  Another third 
were somewhere in between, fluttering around in the vicinity and giving 
distress calls, but not coming terribly close.  Apparently, it would 
seem there's no distinct genetic survival advantage for Kestrels between 
trying to save your babies at some risk to yourself and saving yourself 
first and hoping for the best.

Here in Shoreham, a pair of bluebirds and a pair of tree swallows 
promptly took up residence in the two nestboxes I put up, and both 
fledged nice crops of babies in early summer.  The bluebirds made a 
second nesting, the swallows, as is their habit, did not.  But yet the 
swallows and their many cousins still hanging around and hawking insects 
overhead put up a vigorous defense of the bluebirds' nest when I or the 
cat or a potentially murderous house sparrow came too close, while the 
bluebird parents themselves ran away and let the swallows defend for 
them.  Swallows will readily defend others' nearby nests when they're 
nesting themselves, but I hadn't realized they would continue to do it 
long after they're done for the season.  (They do it with such energy 
that I'm hard put not to say that they almost seem to be doing it, like 
crows with hawks, purely for the exercise and even entertainment factor...)

I'd be very interested in hearing others' anecdotal information on 
variations in nest defense by other species and/or any formal studies 
that have been done on the subject, etc.

Jane
Shoreham


Jane Schlossberg wrote:
> Well, I was hoping I would be able to get some shots of the 4-day old  
> chicks, but Mama thrush will not let me get that close. She has dive bombed me  with 
> all her weight and might, and has made contact with my head and hair. So I  
> am honoring her intensely fierce maternal instincts and staying away. I can get 
>  the closest photos of her, but, as small as she is relative to me, it's a 
> bit  intimidating to have a thrush strike my curls with her beak and feet...she 
> also  hovers with great skill, that is, until she flies full force at my face.
> She stays off the nest quite a bit now, but when she is not feeding the  
> youngsters, she is perched close by on one of my hanging plants or wind  chimes, 
> quietly waiting to pounce on potential invaders such as myself.
> Will keep you updated. I have seen several other hermits with food nearby  
> and I can only assume that there are quite a few other nests with chicks in the  
> neighboring woods.
>  
> Jane Schlossberg, Saint George
> 
> 
> 
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