When will my bees arrive?? They could be here any moment this week and the anticipation is killing me.
Cornell just sent a Twitter note about an interesting observation at the Carolina wren nest cam. The video picked up one of the Carolina wren parents finding a dead nestling and trying to remove it from the nest. Here is the video and if dead baby birds bother you, I would recommend avoiding this video. It’s about five minutes long, but is worth watch until about 2 minutes 45 seconds into it:
What I find fascinating is that Carolina wrens are cavity nesters. It’s dark in that nest, so how did the adult know there was a dead chick in there? It appears to forage around for it from way at the bottom of the nest, under the live chicks. What could be sensed? Most birds do not have a highly developed sense of smell, so that was probably not it. Many also can’t count since you can sometimes put in chicks from another nest. Very curious.
The above video ends with the wren getting the chick out of the clutch, attempting to get it out of the box, but the chick gets caught on the edge. The adult wren then goes back to the brood to look around. Is it looking for another dead chick or to find the chick it dropped? Eventually the wren comes back, discovers the dead chick on the edge of the nest cup and gets it out of the box:
And if that was a little too morbid for you and you need a cleanse, check out the uniform female rangers had to wear in the 1970s. They really rocked the go-go boots.
Well, if they don’t smell and they don’t count, I’m thinking it’s by sound. They may not know how many voices are in the nest, but they will know one is missing.
Look how she fed her brood and then analyzed the beakage for a hungry chick, finding one she missed and feeding it. I wonder too, if there is a sound change in the call of a hungry chick and one that’s just had food stuffed down its gullet?
That is pretty cool. Here is a link to an eagles nest.
http://www.wvec.com/cams/eagle.html
I would agree with Jenn. As I have always had “house birds” (including my sun conure who is now ruling this roost), I have always noticed their acute sense of hearing. Sunnybird can hear Dian’s car pulling up and even her footstep when she has been walking. I don’t know if she reacts the same way to mine, but she sure knows Dian!
That female ranger would be right at home on the Starship Enterprise!
I think it may be the action of the others in the nest that the parent cues into, watch how sedate they seem when she first comes into the nest. Not the typical begging that usually happens. Not acting normal might be enough of a trigger for parental action.
Are wrens completely unable to smell anything? If they merely have a poor sense of smell, eventually a dead nestling will have a strong enough odor to be detected.