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At last a comment (below) that is not as stupid
as most others and raises an intriguing question. However, the question can only
be answered by controlled experiments e.g. with captive Zebra
Finches and it
seems hardly worth the effort. At least David Geering has already said all that
was necessary about Marilyn's message.
PV
simon >
Date:
Wednesday, 24 April 2002 16:44
Subject: Re: [BIRDING-AUS] Re:
Longevity or "Shortevity" Banded birds, my 5c
worth
Oh how I enjoy reading about bird-banding over and
over again.
...but I got to thinking that perhaps there are other yet
more clandestine
effects - can birds actually benefit from being colour
marked. It seems that
this may be possible.
A study at the
University of Bristol has the following to say about
Zebra
finches:
Zebra finches have previously been found to have
preferences for particular
colours of both natural and artificial traits
among opposite sex
conspecifics. For example, in some studies female
zebra finches preferred
males wearing red leg bands to orange-banded and
unbanded birds and rejected
light green-banded males. In other studies,
females also preferred males
with red beaks to orange-beaked males.
However, several authors have failed
to replicate these results and as
birds see well into the UV range it is not
sufficient to assume that they
rely on human visual spectrum.
But you wonder for example what the
effects would be of chucking a great big
shiny blue ring on a male Satin
Bowerbird rather than something like
irridescent red.
I wonder how
many single species marking studies consider this as a
potentially
serious source of
bias?
Regards,
Simon.
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