Beneath the serene facade of bird song and graceful flight lies a world of cunning and deception. Forget the idyllic image of gentle avian creatures; the reality is a feathered underworld where survival often hinges on a well-executed heist, a convincing disguise, or a calculated act of trickery. Welcome to ‘The Bird Crime Files,’ an exploration into the shadowy corners of avian behavior, where kleptoparasitism, mimicry, and other sneaky strategies reign supreme. From the brazen frigatebird, a master of aerial piracy, to the deceptive drongo, whose vocal trickery ensures its next meal, we’ll delve into the captivating stories of birds that steal, cheat, and manipulate their way to survival. Prepare to witness a side of the avian world rarely seen, where the lines between predator and con artist blur, and the art of deception takes flight.
Kleptoparasitism
Kleptoparasitism is essentially a form of feeding where one animal steals food or other resources from another animal. This can involve stealing food that has been caught, collected, or stored.
Frigatebirds
Frigatebirds are a family of seabirds, scientifically known as Fregatidae, that are renowned for their incredible physical form, aerial agility, and their tendency towards kleptoparasitism. They are large birds with long, slender wings and deeply forked tails, giving them an almost bat-like silhouette in flight.
Most of us know frigatebird because the male birds have bright red throat pouches that they inflate during courtship displays, creating a vibrant balloon-like structure. However, they also have long, hooked beaks, ideal for snatching prey or harassing other birds. As one of the most agile fliers in the avian world, they can soar for hours on thermal updrafts and perform remarkable aerial maneuvers. They are also capable of great speed and can change direction with incredible precision.
Frigatebirds will harass other birds until they regurgitate their catch, or they may snatch food directly from their beaks. While they engage in kleptoparasitism whenever possible, frigatebirds also catch their own prey, including fish, squid, and jellyfish.
Herring Gull
Herring Gulls are particularly notorious for kleptoparasitism, especially in areas where they interact with humans. They are commonly found in coastal areas and urban environments, where they readily engage in kleptoparasitism. While they are known to steal food from other birds, their real notoriety comes from stealing from humans. This is especially prevalent in areas with high human activity, such as beaches and harbors.
It’s important to remember that kleptoparasitism is often a flexible feeding strategy. Gulls may resort to it more frequently when food is scarce or when it’s easier to steal than to catch their own prey. Urban environments often provide ample opportunities for kleptoparasitism, as gulls can take advantage of discarded food and human handouts.
Mimicry
Birds copying other calls and sounds is a fascinating aspect of their daily lives. Not only is it wonderful to watch, but it also plays an important part in their survival in several respects. Many birds use some sort of mimicry, but there are two that do it better than any others.
Lyrebirds
Lyrebirds are remarkable Australian birds famous for their extraordinary ability to mimic sounds. They are renowned for their incredible vocal mimicry, capable of imitating a wide range of natural and artificial sounds.
Male Superb Lyrebirds have a spectacular tail that, when fanned out during courtship displays, appropriately resembles a lyre. The males perform elaborate courtship displays, showcasing their impressive tails and vocal abilities. Lyrebirds mimic other birds (and many other sounds) primarily for one crucial reason: sexual selection.
By showcasing their ability to replicate a vast array of sounds, they demonstrate their fitness and versatility to potential mates. The more diverse and complex their repertoire, the more attractive they are to females. Mimicking a wide range of sounds requires significant cognitive ability and vocal control, and it is this ability that signals he is healthy, intelligent, and possesses superior genes.
While sexual selection is the primary driver, some researchers suggest that mimicry may also play a role in territory defense. By replicating the calls of other birds, males may be able to deter rivals or establish dominance.
The sounds that they mimic can vary depending on the local environment, a lyrebird will copy the sounds of the animals that inhabit its local environment. This includes the calls of other birds, animal sounds, and even human-made noises like chainsaws, car alarms, and camera shutters.
Northern Mockingbird
The Northern Mockingbird is particularly famous for its impressive vocal abilities. It’s renowned for its ability to mimic a wide range of sounds, including the songs of other birds, animal calls, and even artificial noises. This talent has earned it the scientific name Mimus polyglottos, which translates to ‘many-tongued mimic’.
This rather plain bird is a medium-sized songbird with a slender body, long tail, and grayish plumage. Distinctive white patches on its wings and tail are visible during flight. It has a wide territory throughout much of North America, the Caribbean, and even some parts of Hawaii.
Northern Mockingbirds are territorial, especially during the breeding season, and males use their complex songs to attract mates and defend these territories. By mimicking the calls of other birds, they may be able to deter rivals or create the illusion of a larger, more dominant presence. A male’s ability to accurately and diversely mimic a wide range of sounds signals his fitness and experience. Females tend to prefer males with larger and more varied song repertoires. During courtship, they may string together long, elaborate sequences of imitated sounds, whereas in territorial disputes, they may use more aggressive or repetitive calls.
Mockingbirds continue to learn and add new sounds to their repertoire throughout their lives, and this ability to adapt and incorporate new sounds allows them to thrive in diverse environments. They even incorporate sounds from their local environments, so birds living in urban settings might include sounds from car alarms and other man-made sounds.
Deceptive Alarm Calls – Fork-tailed Drongo
The Fork-tailed Drongo has been observed using alarm calls to trick other animals into abandoning their food. When they see another animal, such as a meerkat or babbler, finding a food source, they’ll emit an alarm call, mimicking the warning calls of either the targeted animal or other species. This causes the targeted animal to flee, leaving its food behind, which the drongo then steals.
What makes the drongo’s behavior particularly clever is their ability to vary their alarm calls. They can mimic the specific alarm calls of the animals they’re targeting, making the deception more effective. They also vary the calls they use to prevent the other animals from becoming used to one specific alarm and therefore ignoring it. This variation in calls helps to keep the other animals on edge, and therefore still reactive to the drongo’s false alarms.
Other animals often rely on the drongo’s genuine alarm calls as a warning of real danger, as drongos also give true alarm calls when predators are present. This creates a situation where the other animals are inclined to take the drongo’s alarm calls seriously, even when they’re false. Therefore, the drongo uses the other animals’ trust of its honest warning calls, to its advantage.
Brood Parasitism – Common Cuckoo
When it comes to sneaky behavior among cuckoos, particularly in the context of brood parasitism, the Common Cuckoo is often considered one of the most notorious and well-studied. They have evolved to specialize in parasitizing specific host species, which involves laying eggs that closely resemble the host’s eggs in color and pattern, making them harder to detect.
Female common cuckoos are adept at observing host nests and laying their eggs at opportune moments, often when the host is away. In some cases, they may even remove a host egg before laying their own, further deceiving the host. Even the cuckoo chicks get in on the act by ejecting host eggs or chicks from the nest to ensure they receive all the parental care.
Nest Raiding – Crows
Crows are highly intelligent and adaptable birds, which makes them effective nest raiders. If they come across an unattended nest, they will quickly raid it, taking eggs or chicks. They are excellent observers, carefully monitoring the activities of other birds, noting the locations of their nests and the timing of their nesting cycles. Crows often target the nests of smaller birds or those that are less able to defend their nests.
They are particularly adept at finding nests that are poorly hidden or left unguarded. For example, they may target nests that are in vulnerable locations, such as those near the edges of forests or in open areas. In some cases, crows may engage in cooperative raiding, where multiple individuals work together to raid a nest. This can involve one crow distracting the parent birds by using alarm calls while another raids the nest.
Crows are highly intelligent and capable of learning from their experiences. They can learn the locations of successful nests and remember them for future raids. Also capable of adapting their raiding strategies, they will learn the behaviors of their prey.
Distraction Displays – Killdeer
Killdeer are known for their very convincing injured-wing distraction performances. They’ll drag a wing, feign limping, and emit plaintive cries to draw predators away from their ground nests. This display is always dramatic and is a common and well-documented characteristic of Killdeer. They are very reliable when it comes to performing this display.
As ground-nesting birds, their eggs and chicks are particularly vulnerable to predators. This has likely driven the evolution of their effective distraction displays. Killdeer are very adaptable birds and live in a wide range of habitats, increasing the number of people who have witnessed this behavior.
Hidden Food Caches – Nuthatches
Nuthatches are fascinating examples of birds that use food caching as a survival strategy. They are well known for their habit of storing food, primarily seeds, nuts, and insects, in various hiding places. They will wedge these food items into crevices in tree bark, under loose bark, or even in the ground and use their sharp beaks to hammer the food into place, ensuring it stays secure. To further camouflage their cache, they will often cover the food with bits of bark, moss, or lichen.
The ability to remember numerous cache locations is crucial for nuthatches’ survival, especially during winter when food is scarce, and they rely on their remarkable spatial memory to recall where the stash is. They are able to remember a large number of individual locations and the food stored in each location. It is thought that they create a mental map of their territory that allows them to remember where they have placed their food.
The amount of food cached varies depending on the species, habitat, and food availability. In times of abundance, they will cache more food and so are prepared for times of scarcity. These very clever birds will also vary the types of food that they cache, depending on the time of year.
Cooperative Deception – White-winged Chough
The White-winged Chough is a spectacular Australian bird that exhibits cooperative breeding and, intriguingly, cooperative deception. These attractive and loud birds live in stable social groups, with multiple individuals contributing to raising the young. This type of setup during the breeding season creates opportunities for both cooperation and conflict within the group.
Younger choughs, particularly those lower in the social hierarchy, may engage in deceptive helping behavior. They may simulate feeding the nestlings by going through the motions of providing food but without actually delivering any. This behavior is more likely to occur when they are not being closely observed by dominant group members. By appearing to contribute to the care of the young, younger choughs can maintain their social standing and avoid conflict with dominant individuals. It allows them to avoid the energy cost of actually finding and providing food while still gaining the social benefits of being seen to contribute.
The effectiveness of this deception relies on the social dynamics within the group. Dominant individuals are more likely to detect and punish deceptive behavior, while subordinate individuals may be able to get away with it more often. Young birds are very aware of who is watching them.
Final Thoughts
Birds never cease to amaze. We have all seen gulls stealing food from people at the beach, but it has seemed opportunistic more than any deliberate strategy. Now, it looks like this sort of behavior is planned and deliberate as well as widespread and common. And that is just the tip of the iceberg. From the rather elegant frigatebird engaging in basic theft from other birds to the incredible lengths cuckoos go to when getting another bird to raise their own chicks, there seems to be no end to the sneakiness of birds. The end result? I like and respect them even more (although maybe not the chough so much!).
