Around our area of the northeast USA, the fall of the year brings madness to buck deer and moose which are known to attack pets, posts, trees and sometimes even clotheslines. In intra specific battles they are even more aggressive often striking each other so violently that their racks or antlers engage in a way so they can not be disentangled. The result is a slow death of starvarion for the combatants. After the rutting season, their bodies are sometimes found with their antlers locked together in a death tangle, the result of a mortal battle and normal male aggression. But what about other, less obviously aggressive animals? Some birds exhibit extreme aggression during the nesting season.
I recently came across an interesting bird story by Diane Porter entitled “Tough Titmouse”, (see: http://www.birdwatching.com/stories/tough_titmouse.htm. downloaded September 2, 2009) Ms Porter engagingly relates the story of an angry and aggressive titmouse which attacked its own reflected image in her living room window. The bird’s persistent and violent behavior moved from window to window and to the author's automobile mirrors and lasted through the breeding season and then continued on into winter. Ms Porter's intersting research revealed that unlike birds that migrate, tufted titmice (and the other members of the Paridae, such as chickadees, which live in small, non-migratory flocks) spend their whole lives on the very same territory that they will breed on in the spring. This pattern seems to lead to certain aggressive hebaviors. This particular titmouse, finding what it interpreted as another male in its range at Ms Porter’s window, attacked it…to maintain its status in the flock. In winter, the dominant male titmouse of each flock, according to Ms Porter, chases and pecks at all other males in the territory. Such displays tend to ensure that that one male titmouse will be the one that gets to breed on the flock's territory in the spring.
I report here on an example of what I interpret as male aggression in the black-capped chickadee (Poecile atricapillus) which I recently observed in Miller Place, New York, in early September 2009.
Walking my two small dogs, one afternoon, I spied what appeared to be a small dead bird in the short grass of a lawn just off the side of our road. My eye was attracted to a slowly waving bird's wing or tail being moved by the faint breeze and rising above the short grass. Thinking it might be a small bird recently struck by a passing car, I approached to find that the slowly waving tail was that of a chickadee, lying on its back. Closer inspection revealed two chickadees. The first bird with the waving tail lay on his back with his tail upright. The tail rythmically fanned the air while the second bird lay on top the first--its gray back the only part visible to me.
At this point both birds were still and appeared lifeless--except for the waving tail, which I attributed to the breeze. Their eyes were closed. But as I bent down and reached over to grip the short gray tail, I could see that at least one of the birds might be alive. At this point I imagined that perhaps they had become entangled in a fine piece of thread or mono filament fishing line. So gripping the upper bird's tail gently, I raised the two above the short grass to get a clear view. It was then that I observed that the bird whose tail I held, had his small black beak locked tightly on the leg(s) of the other individual. As I turned the tangled pair around, I could see that the second bird had his beak locked around the leg of the first bird! The two were engaged in a death grip! I jiggled the birds slightly, thinking I might disentangle the living one from the dead. But as I did so, raising the pair a few inches above the recently cut lawn, the second bird--the dead one, opened its eyes and seeing me, immediately released its grip on its enemy's leg! It was alive. It instantly dropped toward the ground, spread its wings and to my great surprise flew away, seeming no worse for its recent violent encounter. The second bird, whose tail I still held, ached upward and shook loose from my grip almost immediately afterward. It too flew away, to disappear into the branches of a near-by apple tree. Both birds were apparently unhurt and well--as far as I could tell.
I concluded that I must have arrived on the scene, sometime after the end of a fierce battle between these two (presumably male) chickadees, the result of which ended in a draw. Neither one was willing to release its hold on the other. I imagined them struggling and tumbling in the air, then falling to the soft-earth locked in a mutual grip that would not permit either of these equal-sized determined individuals to escape from the other's hold. Thinking the observation an unusual one, I have added it here to my blog, in the hope that perhaps it might entertain or illustrate the sometimes aggressive behavior of "two tough chickadees".
I recently came across an interesting bird story by Diane Porter entitled “Tough Titmouse”, (see: http://www.birdwatching.com/stories/tough_titmouse.htm. downloaded September 2, 2009) Ms Porter engagingly relates the story of an angry and aggressive titmouse which attacked its own reflected image in her living room window. The bird’s persistent and violent behavior moved from window to window and to the author's automobile mirrors and lasted through the breeding season and then continued on into winter. Ms Porter's intersting research revealed that unlike birds that migrate, tufted titmice (and the other members of the Paridae, such as chickadees, which live in small, non-migratory flocks) spend their whole lives on the very same territory that they will breed on in the spring. This pattern seems to lead to certain aggressive hebaviors. This particular titmouse, finding what it interpreted as another male in its range at Ms Porter’s window, attacked it…to maintain its status in the flock. In winter, the dominant male titmouse of each flock, according to Ms Porter, chases and pecks at all other males in the territory. Such displays tend to ensure that that one male titmouse will be the one that gets to breed on the flock's territory in the spring.
I report here on an example of what I interpret as male aggression in the black-capped chickadee (Poecile atricapillus) which I recently observed in Miller Place, New York, in early September 2009.
Walking my two small dogs, one afternoon, I spied what appeared to be a small dead bird in the short grass of a lawn just off the side of our road. My eye was attracted to a slowly waving bird's wing or tail being moved by the faint breeze and rising above the short grass. Thinking it might be a small bird recently struck by a passing car, I approached to find that the slowly waving tail was that of a chickadee, lying on its back. Closer inspection revealed two chickadees. The first bird with the waving tail lay on his back with his tail upright. The tail rythmically fanned the air while the second bird lay on top the first--its gray back the only part visible to me.
At this point both birds were still and appeared lifeless--except for the waving tail, which I attributed to the breeze. Their eyes were closed. But as I bent down and reached over to grip the short gray tail, I could see that at least one of the birds might be alive. At this point I imagined that perhaps they had become entangled in a fine piece of thread or mono filament fishing line. So gripping the upper bird's tail gently, I raised the two above the short grass to get a clear view. It was then that I observed that the bird whose tail I held, had his small black beak locked tightly on the leg(s) of the other individual. As I turned the tangled pair around, I could see that the second bird had his beak locked around the leg of the first bird! The two were engaged in a death grip! I jiggled the birds slightly, thinking I might disentangle the living one from the dead. But as I did so, raising the pair a few inches above the recently cut lawn, the second bird--the dead one, opened its eyes and seeing me, immediately released its grip on its enemy's leg! It was alive. It instantly dropped toward the ground, spread its wings and to my great surprise flew away, seeming no worse for its recent violent encounter. The second bird, whose tail I still held, ached upward and shook loose from my grip almost immediately afterward. It too flew away, to disappear into the branches of a near-by apple tree. Both birds were apparently unhurt and well--as far as I could tell.
I concluded that I must have arrived on the scene, sometime after the end of a fierce battle between these two (presumably male) chickadees, the result of which ended in a draw. Neither one was willing to release its hold on the other. I imagined them struggling and tumbling in the air, then falling to the soft-earth locked in a mutual grip that would not permit either of these equal-sized determined individuals to escape from the other's hold. Thinking the observation an unusual one, I have added it here to my blog, in the hope that perhaps it might entertain or illustrate the sometimes aggressive behavior of "two tough chickadees".
rjk
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