Brown-capped rosy finch behavior

[Bryan]

Hello-

I've continued to host rosy finches in my yard at 8000 feet in Snowmass Village, up to 500 birds at a time of three species.  Today, unfortunately, two of the Brown-capped rosy-finches crashed into a window and died.  What followed was sad and remarkable.  For about the next hour, up to perhaps 200 of the finches gathered in the trees around the two dead finches.  They would descend and gather immediately around the birds, up to 100 at a time and linger next to the dead finches.  On occasion one of the finches would land on top of one of the dead birds, flapping its wings, reminiscent of copulation, or, as my 10-year-old son put it, "doing CPR."  This continued for about an hour or so.  I don't think that any of the attending birds were Gray-crowned or Black rosy-finches but I'm not totally sure of that.  It reminds me of the behavior of mourning elephants that linger around the body of a dead relative, as I've seen on nature documentaries.  My children took a brief video of the experience.  

Bryan Gieszl

Snowmass Village, CO

[Shep & Mary Harris]

Glad you all were able to witness this behavior.

It's sad, but how incredibly interesting that they are so very social and bonded.

I was able to watch this behavior a couple times; once in Southern Africa with lesser striped swallows doing what looked like trying to revive their dead comrade and then a black-billed magpie gathering.  BTW - do you need any window treatments to prevent this from happening again? I have tons of samples.

Thanks for sharing!

Mary

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[Carol Blackard]

I once witnessed a Cooper’s Hawk killing of a juvenile Blue Jay and the grief of its parent that about broke my heart.

The Cooper fled over my yard and for some reason dropped its prey. The parent had been chasing and squawking after the Cooper, but stopped and perched on a tree limb when it saw the fledgling on the ground. The parent began to call loudly to the bird, but after awhile the tone of the call changed dramatically and became what I would describe as a slurred, gentle wailing. It cried over that dead baby for at least 15 minutes and was just heart-breaking to hear. Finally it flew away quietly and I dried my eyes.

Carol Blackard

carolblackard.com

Sent from my iPhone

On May 2, 2021, at 6:33 PM, Shep & Mary Harris <smnh...@gmail.com> wrote:



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[Brian Johnson]

It's sad but interesting about the finch behavior. I had know about crows doing this, called a crow funeral, but not finches. I have however seen behavior like this in two other birds species.

The more recent one also involved a Cooper's Hawk. I had gotten home from work late afternoon to find the American Robins really raising cain, I had not seen them so agitated before. Eventual I found the reason, a Cooper's Hawk with a dead robin. The hawk flew to the neighbor's house and the robins continued to harass it. Eventual the hawk left with it's kill.

The other one has stuck with me even more, it seem even more sad to me for some reason . I was driving through downtown Englewood, Hampden Ave and Inca about, and slowing down in the usual traffic I saw a dead female Mallard (hen) in the gutter, apparently struck by a car, the male (drake) was on the sidewalk. The drake was leaning over the curb and nudging the hen's body. I only saw it for around 30 seconds since I was driving through and only got a glance but it remains so vivid to me to this day, and very sad. This one especially seemed to be mourning behavoir.

Sometimes sad birding,

Brian Johnson,

Englewood Co

[Jeff Kehoe]

Interesing behavior.  I'd not heard of that.  I've had really good luck with decals on the windows to keep the bird strikes down.  Something like these:

https://windowalert.com/

[Shep & Mary Harris]

A great option to suggest to friends that don't want to construct anything themselves is to purchase the Acopian Bird Savers already made for your problem windows!

Mary

On Mon, 3 May 2021 at 07:12, Bill Stevens <trailg...@gmail.com> wrote:

After much experimentation, I can suggest a cheap and effective window treatment -- hanging cords from the window.  I attach a link, but we made them ourselves by taking a piece of wood the length of the window, stapling on black thin parachute cord 3.5 inches apart and just hammering the board on to the window frame.  Have not had a bird strike since.

https://mn.audubon.org/cords-strings-and-ribbons

Katie Stevens

Moab

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