Birds hold 'funerals' for dead

Some birds, it seems, hold funerals for their dead.

When western scrub jays encounter a dead bird, they call out to one another and stop foraging.

The jays then often fly down to the dead body and gather around it, scientists have discovered.

The behaviour may have evolved to warn other birds of nearby danger, report researchers in California, who have published the findings in the journal Animal Behaviour.

The revelation comes from a study by Teresa Iglesias and colleagues at the University of California, Davis, US.

They conducted experiments, placing a series of objects into residential back yards and observing how western scrub jays in the area reacted.

The objects included different coloured pieces of wood, dead jays, as well as mounted, stuffed jays and great horned owls, simulating the presence of live jays and predators.

Alarming reaction

The jays reacted indifferently to the wooden objects.

But when they spied a dead bird, they started making alarm calls, warning others long distances away.

Continued:  http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/19421217

Birds Form Alliances With Long-Term Neighbors

Like contestants on the game show "Survivor," the small birds called great tits form alliances with their neighboring great tits to defend their nests.

New research shows how the neighboring birds will work together to fend off predators such as woodpeckers — but only if they have been neighbors for over a year. Then they will collaborate in an anti-predator action called "mobbing."

"They give a loud alarm, they make these conspicuous, exaggerated flights, and they hover and swoop down on the predator. … It gets quite loud and the birds are very agitated," study researcher Ada Grabowska-Zhang, a graduate student at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom, told LiveScience. "The more individuals participate in that behavior, the more likely they are to succeed."

Continued:  http://www.livescience.com/19882-great-tit-neighbor-alliances.html