It’s Saturday again, and we’ll take a break from photos to show readers’ videos. And by “reader,” I of course mean Tara Tanaka in Florida (Vimeo site here, flickr site here), from whose collection I’ve chosen two digiscoped clips.
The first (“Bart tries to kill Billy, taken with the GH4”) is an attempted murder of one egret chick by another (you can hear Tara gasp during the unsuccessful chickicide attempt). This is a good example of sibling rivalry: your sibling shares only half your genes, which is why baby birds fight with each other for food. The notes:
It was all peace, love and harmony, until the parent arrived with food. Bart (on the right) was clearly the most aggressive chick, and Bobby (in the middle) looked like he had already been attacked from behind, probably by Bart. Billy looked very tentative, and it soon became clear why. As soon as he tried to get some breakfast, Bart pushed him out of the nest, much to my horror. I gasped and looked up from the camera to see Billy clawing his way back to safety from our swamp with the 10′ gator. As he tried to get back in the nest Bart continued to jab at him, and even after he was back in the nest Billy kept shaking his head, but his eyes looked okay as far as I could tell. I’m surprised that Billy isn’t a lot smaller. The parent seemed to be contemplating the situation, but not interfering. Mother Nature can be a tough woman.
And here are the ablutions of a lovely catbird:
2015-10-01: Gray Catbird [Dumetella carolinensis], slow motion bathing bliss, shot in 4K with the GH4
Darling ritual – wash !
With Valentine’s approaching, and in keeping w m’ritual of at least one actual book per package sent them, not more than five minutes ago, I ordered thus for the grandkiddos:
http://www.mitpress.mit.edu/books/aaaaw-zzzzzd-words-birds
A g a i n, aaaaw !
Blue
I have seen human families where the sibling rivalry was comparable, to a degree. The nuts do not fall far from the tree of life.
That’s some dysfunctional family! The kids are so aggressive they seem to want to devour their parent – head first. Talk about ‘biting the beak that feeds you’.
The gray catbird is sitting in the catbird’s seat.
Sub
Cool vids.
Talk about selfish genes…sheesh!
Videos S
Ray Sent from my iPad
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In this Great Egret, and many other herons / egrets hatchlings are a day or two apart in age. As a result the smaller / weaker often gets fed less and can be subject to sibling aggression if food is limited. In good food years all chicks survive to fledge.