Could not think of a decent title for this thread. (1 Viewer)

Seeing the picture of the Cardinal feeding the goldfish (because it apparently had lost its brood) set me thinking.

Is this a common practice?, birds carrying food around for young that have disappeared or died.

Has anyone else seen this behaviour?

I have seen Coots do this to up to 3 days after young disappeared.

If you put two birds in a cage with food, and one is a nestling, gaping its mouth, the adult bird cannot resist putting something in its mouth. Once they learn to pick up food, the two birds will fight over the food.

Ronald Zee said:

Seeing the picture of the Cardinal feeding the goldfish

Click to expand...

Now that I'd like to see!! ||


Darrell

Tero said:

If you put two birds in a cage with food, and one is a nestling, gaping its mouth, the adult bird cannot resist putting something in its mouth. Once they learn to pick up food, the two birds will fight over the food.

Click to expand...

Tero I know this, but why do birds try to feed young that are no longer there? Why do they still have this urge to do this?, and how many species do this?

Sometimes Coots make a cetain sound while feeding young, many a time I have seen Coots carrying food around and making this 'feeding' sound days after the last young disappeared.

Darrel

I posted this picture some days ago:

http://www.birdforum.net/showthread.php?t=27645

I imagine it's instinctive behaviour coupled with an inability to comprehend the mortality of their young: "I had some kids, they must be around here somewhere, and they'll be hungry".

-O-

The birds identify the nest site as home. They will hang out there a while even after the nestlings are taken away. I think it is all hormone controlled. When nobody calls, eventually they leave.

It's probably as Tero said - hormone related. As long as the feedback loop of demanding young elicits parent to feed young, the parent bird produces hormones that keep it engaged in feeding behavior. When the feedback loop is broken either by the death of the young or the young learning to feed on its own - within a few days the parent stops producing the hormone and stops the feeding behavior.

It's not that different than mammalian lactation (milk production). The suckling of the baby or milking of the cow, sheep, goat, etc. elicits the hormones that keep milk production going and prevent a new reproductive cycle. When suckling/milking ends, within a short time lactation ends and the body resets for a new cycle. With humans the cycle is not tied to length of day but for many (most?) other species it is also affected by the annual planetary cycle so that abundant food supplies and the right temperatures occur when the animal reproduces. Barbara

We behave like this all the time - eg start keeping your toothbrush in a different place in the bathroom and notice how long it takes before you stop automatically going to the old place. Habits are hard to break - sometimes there may be a hormonal elelemnt, but I'd guess that in others it's just a matter of established pathways in the brain.

And like the coots, we often take a long time to accept the fact that loved ones have gone. I found myself talking to my grandparents a lot after they'd died: maybe not so different to these coots.

regards
James