I have my favorite chair. Hubs has his. Our cats both have their spots as well.
We have climbing roses on one side of our porch and I can look at them from the bathroom. There are usually about 50 sparrows hanging out along with a Thrasher family. The family has their nest. The sparrows tend to be in the same places but I can’t tell if they are the same sparrows or if those are favored twigs that always have a random sparrow.
So, what say you?
They may, at least while they’re nesting. Their bird GPS knows when something’s missing; I’ve seen that with hanging plants.
I vote aye. Pecking order type of thing.
When I clean Rocco’s (our African Grey) cage, droppings are accumulated in three big discrete piles, where he hangs when confined. Eighty percent of his day he’s out playing, which is more difficult to quantify, as he’s partially caged trained and returns to his cage to eliminate.
The Little Gray Birds that lived in the bushes used to stand on the top of the wire fence in the sun. They would line up where the fence turned a corner toward the house. The prime spot seemed to be that corner. Whenever any of them flew off the rest would work their way down the line toward the corner. They might all fly away for a few seconds then fly back and squabble a bit before getting their positions back on the line.
A family of swallows once built a nest near my front door. Unfortunately, it was too small for the entire brood. So the mother spent the nights with the kids while the father camped out on my apartment patio by himself, like a husband sent to sleep on the living room couch.
I should clarify that this happened when I took a hanging plant down that had a nest in it, and the bird was flying back and forth, looking for it, not realizing that the nest was just a couple feet away from where it thought it was. I had done this to water the plant.
Thanks guys. I really hadn’t thought about it until a few days ago, but it makes sense that birds would have favorite spots just like people and cats.
I do sometimes see squabbles in the roses, but they don’t seem very serious. Its more like “stop pushing me!” sort of thing.
Our Quaker (Ray) leaves one huge pile under his favorite perch. His cage is in my office/gaming area so his door gets opened whenever I settle into my chair in the morning and remains open until he lets me know he wants to go to bed. Unless he nips at one of us humans or we need to go out for a bit, then he gets locked in.
They do. Birds that hunt for example tend to have favourites perches chosen apparently because they give a good field of view of potential prey.
I am owned by three smaller parrots. They all have their favorite spots in their cages, with corresponding guano piles. They also have a favorite group perch on top of the bedroom door. I put newspaper under the door and clean it frequently, as that is preferable to them choosing random spots I have to hunt to find. It’s no coincidence that the spot on the door is adjacent to one of the air vents and is one of the warmest (as well as highest) spots in the place all winter long.
I’ve read about male birds singing from a limited number of specific locations when establishing/defending territory.
Having worked in a tropical hall with free-flying birds, I can confirm that doing the daily checks that everyone was present was usually a doddle, 'cos each was almost always in one of a small number of favourite spots.
They often would be doing the same behaviour in the same place as well - calling from the higher perches being typical. Definitely creatures of habit.
Interesting. Thanks!
Obviously telling species apart in a mixed crowd is easy. And for many (but far from all) birds there’s enough sexual dimorphism to tell the males from females. And often young vs mature is pretty easy. But ISTM there are a lot of species where telling one mature individual from another is darn hard.
Were you actually tracking that Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice specifically were here, or were you just counting “yup got 4 whateverbirds.” and would only mess with trying to ID individuals if your count came up short?
Kind of a mix- the smaller birds mostly just hung around in a little flock, so a straight headcount, but we had a few that wouldn’t hang round together, so needed more of an individual check to make sure you weren’t just counting the same one twice.
They all did have colour coded leg bands, but they can be hard to see at a distance. Some of the birds were easily identifiable as individuals, often by behaviour rather than straight looks- like with one pair of turacos we had, the male liked people and would be watching with interest in case you magically generated food (pretty sure he could identify individual staff members), while the female was wary of humans.
We always checked for any unusual behaviour as well as just presence, so it was important to know what was normal for each individual. Some of the staff were- and still are- unnervingly good at telling apparently identical animals apart; I was never that good at it, if I’m honest.
We have a pair of Grey Butcherbirds that hang around that we feed occasionally particularly when they are nesting (Arthur & Martha). They do have very subtle sexual dimorphism but like @Filbert i can tell them apart far more easily by behaviour. Martha is bold as brass from the get go and Arthur is more cautious until he warms up.
And they very definitely have their favourite spots, one being on our clothesline in order to rain death upon any small critter that moves on our lawn.
And Arthur has a favourite high spot from which he sings when it’s raining. Why when it’s raining? Shrug. Ask a butcherbird psychologist.
I once trained a bunch of Blue Jays to come to me and ask for peanuts in the shell. I started when I saw a jay in the yard, I would lob a peanut not at the jay but across the front of them. Once I got them used to getting peanuts from me I would act like I didn’t see them so they would edge closer and closer, eventually taking them from my patio table while I was sitting there. If you were reading a book and not paying attention to them, they would let out that very loud screech they are known for and scare the shit out of you.
Depends. A few birds are communal and will move with the flock. But most have to stay in their territory. We did a Big Day once to find as many species as we could. Some were exactly where we expected to be, but others we had to search their known territory. Birds with low densities can have a pretty large free territory. But common species are prettty limited in range. The Kestrel was on the same wire, same pole every day. There was only one species we failed to find in its usual haunts that day.
Every morning when I walk from my parking spot* into work, I pass the same black phoebe perched in the same spot, giving his call. This is third spring he’s been there.
Of course, I can’t prove it’s the same individual. But I haven’t seen any others.
*No assigned spots, but I always park in the same one.
Once a male mockingbird picks a spot and starts its incessant squawking, it JUST. WON’T. MOVE.