Bird brains

[ffutures]

The bird feeder outside my kitchen window is currently getting a lot of attention from blue tits - seem to be several smallish ones, I'm wondering if they hatched earlier this year though it seems a bit too early for them to be flying. Most of them have got the idea of sticking their beaks into the holes to pull out seeds, but there is at least one that's persistently trying to peck its way through the clear plastic. Not sure if that makes him an idiot or unusually intelligent, able to recognize food even when he can't smell or taste it.

Comments

[eledonecirrhosa.livejournal.com]

Well at least that one now knows that there are substances that are transparent but hard. Might reduce his chances of flying into a window! That's a regular event when the blue tits fledge and fly round our work car park.

The British Trust for Ornithology has a nice summary of the timing of blue tit fledging etc blue tits (http://www.bto.org/volunteer-surveys/nbc/blue-tit-blog) That says they may have been flying from June.

[uk-sef.livejournal.com]

My baby blue-tits have been zipping around for quite a while now (possibly since some point in June). Although there's supposedly a concern over touching bird eggs because the parents will smell you on them and be scared away, apparently they really don't rely on smell but vision. Which probably means your baby blue-tit is a bit of an idiot rather than a misguided genius. Unless of course it has super-pecking-powers and succeeds ...

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Thanks, that makes that a bit clearer. What I ought to do next year is chart how much food is eaten by measuring its height in the feeder - my guesstimate is that consumption has gone up a lot in the last three weeks or so, but I'm not entirely sure.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

OK, idiot it is. Seems plausible.