It’s nice to see
neighbors getting along especially, when they are species that usually fight.
Most birds are pretty unforgiving when it comes to seeing birds of prey and
will often mob them until they move on to some other territory. When nests are
around, this is understandable, but Italy, as always is a land of surprises.
On the Gela Plain lesser
kestrels are nesting in a colony in a cereal producing area which has lots of
small mammals for them to eat. Colony nesting has some distinct advantages when
it comes to babysitting as neighbors can be neighborly and take turns in
keeping watch.
The unexpected findings by
Camobello, Sarà, and Hare, which are published in the current issue of
Ecological Behavior, show that there is a mixed colony of kestrels and jackdaws
living happily and sharing the watch duty (1,2). Not, we should note, quite
equally. The jackdaws got the job of doing most of the alarm calling to protect
the nests.
So though
both have a reduction in labor, the jackdaws are the junior partners. Perhaps
that’s appropriate for noisier birds. We await developments as to how the relationship
develops. The lesser kestrel numbers are pretty low (about 20,000 currently) so
things may change if their numbers grow, but for now they are good neighbors.
- http://beheco.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2011/12/02/beheco.arr207.abstract
- http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/16249006
Please note that this
blog is migrating to
in 12 days.
