Abstract
Abstract Territorial animals often reduce aggression towards familiar neighbours compared to unfamiliar conspecifics. However, variation in the response to different neighbours is less known. In this work, I examined the territorial behaviour of male scops owls during countersinging interactions with two familiar neighbours and I asked whether vocal behaviour of the focal male reflected dear-enemy relationships. Analysis revealed that the focal male’s vocal frequency was associated with (1) the degree of instability of the territory boundary shared with a neighbour and (2) the motivation to persist in the dyadic interaction with that neighbour. Patterns of movement directed to specific individuals suggest that scops owls do discriminate between neighbours. A case of partial territory takeover was observed that was accompanied by temporal changes in vocal frequency in one of the opponents, confirming that vocal frequency is a flexible, context-dependent feature of the relationship of neighbouring scops owls.
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