Birds respond similarly to taxidermic models and live cuckoos Cuculus canorus

Piotr Tryjanowski,Federico Morelli,Piotr Indykiewicz,Anders Pape Møller,Zbigniew Kwieciński

doi:10.1007/s10164-018-0554-z

Abstract

Stuffed birds are widely used in research for identifying effects of predators and nest parasites on bird behaviour, studying levels of aggression and the size of territories. However, the fact that these models do not move or vocalize may question the results of such studies and open them to criticism. One solution would be to determine how the results of research using stuffed dummies correlate with the response of wild animals to enemies under the same environmental conditions. In a first attempt, we examined the correlation between the intensity of mobbing of a dummy cuckoo Cuculus canorus and interactions with live cuckoos in the field during the breeding season in western Poland. A total of 39 bird species mobbed cuckoo dummies; all 39 were found to attack live cuckoos, while 24 species (61.5%) did so during experiments using a dummy. The number of individual birds involved in mobbing a dummy was positively correlated with the number of individuals attacking real cuckoos in the same areas, even when the most commonly mobbing species, the barn swallow Hirundo rustica, was excluded from the analyses. However, we did not find significant differences in frequency of mobbing behaviour depending on cuckoo behaviour described as flight or sitting, or calling rather than remaining quiet. Therefore, we conclude that the use of a dummy for studying mobbing of hosts and non-hosts of the cuckoo provide results that are similar to those made in response to the behaviour of live hosts.

Highlights

In total in the field the cuckoo was observed in 315 cases, and in 89 cases (27.6%) it was mobbed by other species
There was a significant positive correlation between the number of individuals per species involved in mobbing in experiments with the dummy and observed in the same area attacking live cuckoos (Fig. 1a)
Even excluding the barn swallow Hirundo rustica, because this bird species responded much more strongly than predicted, we found a significant positive correlation between the number of individuals responding to live cuckoos and the number of individuals responding to dummy cuckoos (Table 1; Fig. 1b)

Summary

Introduction

Dummies and stuffed birds are widely used in the study of mobbing of predators (Curio et al 1978; Suzuki and Ueda 2013; Syrová et al 2016) and brood parasites, including the common cuckoo Cuculus canorus (Moksnes et al 1991; Røskaft et al 2002; Grim 2005). Sometimes the reaction of birds to dummies is used to distinguish between the relative importance of particular species such as nest predators or brood parasites, and classically a pigeon is used as a control (reviewed by Grim 2005) Another way of avoiding criticism is to use as a control dummy an object similar to the tested animal, for example a cuckoo that may influence the results of an experiment leading to erroneous conclusions (Grim 2005). These reflections raise the question of whether experiments with dummies resemble the real situation with live birds in the field

Methods

Results

Conclusion