[Tweeters] Bird Brains - Revisited

[Dennis Paulson via Tweeters]

Jim,

Thanks for the good thoughts. I always hope that birders spend time watching bird behavior, which indeed can be individual, just as in people. They probably are hardwired to do many of the things they do, but there is plenty of latitude for making their own decisions.

Dennis Paulson
Seattle
dennispaulson at comcast dot net


> On Dec 26, 2025, at 9:46 AM, Jim Betz via Tweeters <tweeters at u.washington.edu> wrote:

> 

> Hi again,

> 

>   I've been mulling this topic over - pretty much continuously since I was

> re-invigorated by the youtube video I posted previously.  So what I'm

> thinking now is that bird behavior is a curious/fascinating mix of both

> instinctual and situational thinking.

> 

>   On the instinctual side are things such as migration and courting - but I'm

> thinking it is primarily related to those behaviors on a 'grand (global?) scale.

> For instance - whether or not a particular species migrates - or doesn't ... etc.

>   But, there is considerable situational thinking with respect to when the

> bird migrates or an individual bird's courting dance.

> 

>   We've often heard that most bird behavior is related to 1) availability of food,

> 2) sex, and 3) territory.  While I agree with that - I also recognize that there is a

> lot of situational thinking ... for example, the trumpeter swans leave whereever

> they spent the night and come to the fields we look out over ... but they don't

> simply 'return to the same field they were at yesterday' - they seem to select

> where they will land as they are flying in.  Do they "see" the potatoes or do

> they "smell" them?  There is considerable variation in which field will be used

> on any given day.  But they also don't go to one particular field (that they were

> at yesterday) and pick somewhere else "today" ... and then return to that

> prior field a few days later.  There is -some- movement in the middle of the

> day ... but primarily if they choose a field they are there the entire day.  Some

> small percentage of birds will leave an individual field in the late morning - and

> some move to that same field in the same time frame ... so there are choices

> being made and individual birds (or small groups) are choosing to move.

>   There ae similar behaviors for other bird species - but always with a certain

> number of individual birds making their own "situational" choices in any

> given day.

> 

>   I'm a birding photographer.  One thing that is apparent to me is that

> individual birds of the same species can have huge differences in terms

> of how they tolerate (or don't) humans near them.  Some birds will

> fly off much sooner than others.  Some even seem to pretty much

> ignore the presence of humans - witness the Short-eared Owls at the

> East 90 which almost seem to not care about the photogs crowding

> very close to them to get that 'perfect' shot.  Sometimes.

> 

>   From where I'm standing - it seems like a huge part of this phenomenon

> is our (humans) tendency to try to overlay Human intelligence/behavior

> on other species.  I often hear people explaining bird behavior based

> upon how a human would think/behave ... rather than simply observing

> and describing the behavior(s) - and trying to see patterns in the way the

> birds they see are behaving that are repeated over and over again. And

> then, after considerable different observations have been made ... making

> "sense" out of it.

>                                                          - Jim in Skagit

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