Subject: rock doves
Date: Oct 10 13:20:51 1995
From: Michael Donahue - mdonahue at u.washington.edu


Russell Roger's comment about color banding bushtits brought to mind a
little project I had going on out of the window of my office at the
University of Washington Medical Center.

By an odd set of coincidences, my office was moved to another wing of the
medical center, overlooking a rooftop, at the exact same time someone
brough some birdseed to work to give to me.

I'd seen a few pigeons out on the roof, so I decided to throw some seed
out. Over the next several weeks I observed the pigeons feeding
on the rooftop, until someone in another office complained about all the
feathers blowing in the window, and I had to stop.

What I found fascinating was that I was able to recognize individuals by
their plumage differences, and I had different pigeons coming on
different days. I had assumed that the flock of pigeons was the same
"flock" that travelled and fed together; apparently birds don't hang out
with the same group all the time, and switch flocks.

After I started noticing that the "flock" comprised of different birds at
different times, I decided to count them, and it was another surprise:
there were 16-19 individuals comprising the flock; I counted 18 birds
about 80 percent of the time. I guess I was assuming that it was always
the same flock because it comprised of the same number of birds.

So color banding those bushtits could reveal quite a lot about the local
bushtit community and their flocking allegiances! Sign me up for the
study group!

Mike Donahue
mdonahue at u.washington.edu