Tweets,

I've seen similar behavior among Flickers. Last summer I had a pair of
Flickers that more or less took possession of my bird baths and
waterers. They would physically attack smaller birds and even squirrels
who came near the water while they were around. I saw a Flicker take a
fledgling CB Chickadee by the neck and literally pound it on the deck -
with fatal results.

Other bird to bird attacks (outside the usual bird of prey / victim
scanario) that I've witnessed include:

Downy Woodpecker crunching a Brown Creeper fatally (too close to a nest
box), adult male Rufous Hummingbird literally blasting a juvenile male
Rufous out of the sky (usual territorial behavior), and a Black Capped
Chickadee!! slapping around a Robin --I could never figure that one out
-- it was in October, not a nesting situation.

Most bird agression of this type is due to protection of nesting
territory, young or of limited resources like food or water. Who knows,
maybe there are just some nasty birds out there - no anthropomorphism
intended - you see agressive/passive members of many species outside of
humans. I'm not sure about how much the sex of the bird matters -
machismo IS a human thing - maternal/territorial instinct is not.

Rob Conway
Bellevue, WA

robin_conway at hotmail.com


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From: jinkster at mail.netshop.net
Subject: Bird agression

There was an incident in my backyard today which seemed shocking...

I have two suet feeders ...frequented by a number of birds including a
red-shafted flicker ( male), mountain chickadees, 2 downy woodpeckers
(male and female), a flock of pygmy nuthatches, and a white-breasted
nuthatch. The flicker dominates feeding activity and will not tolerate
the male downy, nor the white-breasted nuthatch, ... A couple of days
ago I noticed the white-breasted giving a wing-spread display quite near
the flicker, and wondered if it might be a male also, or the behaviour
was just related to competition at a food source. Today, however, I
looked out at hearing distress cries and saw that the flicker had the
white-breasted in his beak and was giving it a good shaking. The
nuthatch got free, flew to another
pine about 30 feet away, and thence out of my sight. I failed to see
whether it flew normally or whether it appeared otherwise injured.
The flicker followed it to the same spot in the tree a few minutes (or
seconds) later, and flew off in a northeasterly direction, but I
couldn't tell whether or not it was in pursuit. I don't believe the
nuthatch has been back since.

I have seen the usual jousting at food, but never what seemed a serious
attempt to injure. The flicker seems to have become more
possessive as the weather has become colder. Is this sort of
behaviour more common than my previous observations would have led me to
believe? Does it escalate as winter conditions become more severe?
(There is no less food available at my feeders, however.) Or do I have
just an agressive flicker who was telling the nuthatch to flick off in
no uncertain terms?

Appreciate hearing...

Joan
jinkster at mail.netshop.net
Kamloops BC Canada









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