cisticolas breeding

["Philip Veerman" <>]

There are all sorts of variations. In some groups of birds e.g. Button-quails, the sex roles are reversed. Many species have mutual displays, like the water dances of grebes. This message from Martin adds to my comment about the female sexual solicitation behaviour by the Pied Currawong is far more obvious than the male's courting behaviour. A female sexual solicitation behaviour is a common thing in birds and I have no idea whether it may be more or less obvious relative to how obvious the male's display is. The points to consider relative to the original issues, include that display is not always about breeding display, there are other reasons to display or sing and we may assume the wrong intention, display is clearly not proof of breeding and singing alone can just be territorial behaviour and /or trying maybe unsuccessfully, to attract a partner (who may be nowhere near).

 

If cisticolas or anything else are only or mainly observed when singing and we take that as a display for COG records, and that variously goes into COG breeding records according to the varied wishes of the observers, then even though they may well be breeding, without proper evidence of it, that would make our records inconsistent. 

 

Good that another caught the "An original Duckumentary" program.

 

Philip

 

-----Original Message-----
From: Martin Butterfield [
Sent: Tuesday, 28 January 2014 7:21 AM
To: John Harris
Cc: Bill & Raelene;
Subject: Re: [canberrabirds] cisticolas breeding

In my previous post on this topic I said "I'm not sure that it is always the male that is the actor... ".  

While watching the excellent "An original Duckumentary" I noticed that with the American Wood Duck the female performs the display behaviour immediately prior to copulation.

Martin