Does singing make birds feel happy?

Yesterday afternoon after the rain stopped I went for a walk in the woods. Along the path I was surrounded by the Ovenbird's emphatic "teacher, teacher, teacher". This was late into the breeding season when most of the other warblers were quietly foraging for food for their offspring.

Birds do look happy when they sing.

We know that birds live on a very tight energy budget. No wasted motions. Everything has to have a purpose for furthering survival and procreation, and  this holds true for emotions also. We sense a bird's anxiety when a predator approaches a nest or the anger when for example the Robin in my backyard  keeps chasing a Blue Jay through the trees away from her nest. But a feeling of happiness? Is it a luxury? Or a reward for a  behavior that serves a purpose in promoting survival?  Birds sing to attract mates or defend their territory.  But does the act of singing cause the bird to feel pleasure, or put in another way, does it make the bird feel happy?

Several years ago I observed a Mockingbird perched on a tall post singing his heart out. While singing he would  jump up, flap his wings and rise up several feet, drop back down, and do so again and again - a picture of pure exuberance!  He seemed to be jumping for joy - so much happiness! That this was part of part of the male's courtship display did not diminish it.

I unearthed an interesting study addressing the question of happiness. Any pleasurable action in animals, mammals as well as birds, is associated with a release of dopamine in the brain. A study of Zebra Finches has shown that singing increases dopamine release, but only while courting a female. Undirected singing does not.  So a male bird  that sings incessantly to keep out competing males is probably more likely to have an elevated level of the cortisol, not dopamine, and feels stress rather than pleasure.

Happy Birding!

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Wood Warbler Season

My first thought is, when waking up in the morning, where am I going to bird today. I can't wait to get up and get going. I am fortunate not to have to travel very far to arrive at great birding spots. They are all around me. I just have to make up my mind whether it's going to be a pine forest, a second growth terrain, a grassy field, a swamp,  pond or river...

This weekend with warblers on my mind I hiked up Hogback Mountain to the top of the Tower Trail where last year I had seen my first Blackburnian Warbler astonishing me with his bright orange chest. And I saw him again, on the same moss-covered weather-beaten conifer, with the morning sun reflected in the blazing orange of his throat and chest.

 Eventually he dropped down into a  spruce to forage.

He found a fat spider...

...which he promptly swallowed. Last to go were the spider's legs.

Black-throated Blue Warbler

 Photographing warblers, such as the Black-throated Blue Warbler above or the Black-throated Green Warbler below, who are at home in the shady understory of a forest, present a special challenge. What's needed is a lens with a wide aperture to let in enough light, but the best I can do with mine is an aperture of 6.3, which means I have to use a slow shutter speed and high ISO to get anything at all. So usually I end up with grainy underexposed photos that require a lot of post processing work.

Black-throated Green Warbler

I found this Chestnut-sided Warbler in a power line cut. He was in bright sunlight but didn't want to sit still in his pursuit of insects through the brush until he finally flew into a distant tree to rest for a few minutes.

Cheers and happy birding!

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The Curious Behavior of two Brown Creepers

During one of my walks through the woods I observed two Brown Creepers rapidly flying back and forth between several tree trunks as if playing musical chairs. Most of the time they were on different trees, but occasionally on the same one, but without obvious interaction. They were moving so rapidly up and down, spiraling around, that I may have missed that part I thought maybe it was a parent with a youngster following it, but I never saw any begging behavior.



Is that a tick attached underneath the beak?

When I looked at the photos at home I saw that one of the two was carrying a bug in its beak and it seemed to be holding on to it, not passing it on to the other during the entire time that I was watching. They were totally oblivious to me following them with my camera.

Does it look like a doubled-over ant?

.... or perhaps a beetle?

The behavior seemed very odd. So I checked the article on Brown Creepers on BNA Online and found this as a possible explanation:

High-pitched call given, followed by a silent chase in which pair, about 1–3 m apart, spiraled around tree trunks with white undersides prominent, and landed on a tree trunk, one above the other. Wing-fluttering, rapid beating of wings held above the body, often occurred after a chase. This display often followed by another chase. Courtship feeding often occurred after these displays and continued throughout the nesting cycle until eggs hatched, male usually feeding female. Female wing-flutters and gapes similar to the begging of young birds; male lands above her, turns sideways, and places food item in female’s throat. Copulation not observed during these displays. Authors: Hejl, S. J., K. R. Newlon, M. E. Mcfadzen, J. S. Young, and C. K. Ghalambor

So maybe what I was witnessing was part of their courtship behavior?