Audrey

__ How do birds react to a nonnative predator's call? __

Introduction
I was wondering about bird calls and what they have in common with each other, and how bird may react to different sounds. That's how I came up with this question. I thought that maybe a bird's reaction to a nonnative bird's sound would be different.

Question

 * How do birds react to a nonnative predator's call?

Hypothesis
I believe the birds will be spooked and confused, because they tend to react no matter what the loud sound is.
 * What results do you expect to find and why do you expect this?

Variables

 * Control: The birds' behavior with no change
 * Independent: The call of a bird, one native, one nonnative
 * Dependent: The reaction to the change

Methods and Materials


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**Materials**

 * Bird feeder
 * Recordings of Red Tailed Hawk and Golden Eagle (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66M4ZSjvGUQ)
 * Speakers

Methods
I am going to record of the behavior of the birds at my feeder per normal in the morning in the table below, and then on another morning play the recording of a Red Tailed Hawk, and record their reaction. On a third morning I will play the recording of a Golden Eagle, and record the reaction. Control || Day 2 Red Tail Hawk || Day 3 Golden Eagle ||
 * Behavior || Day 1
 * Sitting on the ground/deck (# of birds) || 1 || 2 || 0 ||
 * Sitting on the feeder (# of birds) || 2 || 0 || 0 ||
 * Sitting on the Dogwood tree (# of birds) || 2 || 5 || 1 ||
 * Bird sound (amount of noise) || 4.5 || 5 || 2 ||

When I played the golden eagle sound all of the birds evacuated the area, but after a few minutes the bolder ones would fly up to the feeder, grab some seed and fly away unlike they usually do, which is sit on the feeder and eat for awhile. That reaction was much stronger than the reaction to the hawk call. This result was interesting because Golden Eagles do not prey on other birds, but on mammals.

Discussion & Conclusion

 * I discovered that Golden Eagles don't eat birds, they actually eat mammals, which makes the reaction even more strange.
 * The reaction to the Hawk was strange, in that it was all but nothing.
 * If I could do it differently I would retry with a better Hawk call, because I'm not sure the birds heard it.
 * My hypothesis was neither supported nor rejected by the result.