John:
I have no idea what stimulated you post your last e-mail, but it is
certainly true that many different species "hang out" together. One
common reason is to form mixed-species foraging flocks of various sizes.
There are several distinct advantages for closely related and
not-so-closely related species to assoiate with each other -- for one it
is often more efficient for birds that use different feeding styles to
forage together. Furthermore, it is not uncommon in multi-species
associations for one species to benefit at the expense of other species
present (a form of social parasitism, etc.). I wouldn't go as far as to
say that the birds are friends, but how would we ever know?
Cheers, Jim
e-mail
On Wed, 17 Dec 1997, John Leonard wrote:
> When we see two individuals of closely related species hanging round
> together then we're probably right to think that they might try to breed. On
> the other hand it may be that they're ''just good friends' and I don't see
> why we can't grant that birds are intelligent enough to have friends, ie to
> have individuals of the same, or another, species they prefer to associate
> with.
>
> W.H.Hudson (a British ornithologist of the early 20th century, whose books,
> even though they refer only to British and South American birds, are well
> worth reading still) has a chapter in one of his books (sorry can't remember
> which) about odd pairs of birds, and most of these cases were of birds so
> dissimilar that they couldn't possible have tried to breed, eg a Eurasian
> Curlew and a Redshank.
>
>
>
>
> #############################################
>
> John Leonard (Dr),
> PO Box 243,
> Woden, ACT 2606
>
> 'I thought of New York as a Hemlock forest that had
> been logged too heavily....'
> Murray Gell-Mann
>
>
> http://www.spirit.net.au/~jleonard
> #############################################
>
>
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