Fairy wrens teach secret passwords to their unborn chicks

[Mortisha]

a pair of superb fairy-wrens return to their nest with food for their newborn chick. As they arrive, the chick makes its begging call. It’s hard to see in the darkness of the domed nest, but the parents know that something isn’t right. Whatever’s in their nest, it’s not their chick. It doesn’t’ know the secret password. They abandon it, flying off to start a new nest and a new family somewhere else.

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/notro ... -impostors/

clever little things

[mattymeischke]

Great link, thank you.
As usual, birds are much smarter than science usually gives them credit for.

My wife is a classical double bass player, and my children had a bowed double bass through the belly while they were in utero. I have often wondered how much they heard/felt; certainly they are all better dancers than either my wife or myself.

[Mortisha]

As usual, birds are much smarter than science usually gives them credit for.

so true Matty, Think humans are still only looking at the tip of a huge iceberg we it comes to bird behaviours.

[finchbreeder]

It would appear that all young can learn before birth/hatching. I was doing a computor course during my 1st pregnancy, and he is a degree holding computor geek. And I read prodigiously to him while pregnant with her, and she had a reading age of almost twice her biological age by 8. Glad to see the Wrens are winning.
LML

[Netsurfer]

I was gonna post this link when I noticed your post, anyhow here is the same article published on yahoo.com
http://au.news.yahoo.com/a/-/latest/153 ... important/
But I doubt it very much there's to much truth in it, although I haven't tried it yet but I'm sure you can foster other Wren eggs or chicks just like you do with other species. There may be something to do with the Cuckoo chick, may be the sound they make, the color of the skin or the size of the chick.

[finches247]

Interesting Article

[desertbirds]

I was gonna post this link when I noticed your post, anyhow here is the same article published on yahoo.com
http://au.news.yahoo.com/a/-/latest/153 ... important/
But I doubt it very much there's to much truth in it, although I haven't tried it yet but I'm sure you can foster other Wren eggs or chicks just like you do with other species. There may be something to do with the Cuckoo chick, may be the sound they make, the color of the skin or the size of the chick.

You probably can foster the wren eggs or chick but the wrens are working out not to foster cuckoo chick.Watching three species of fairy wren here,, they all have slightly different behaviour and preference for different habitat.Im suprised the cuckoo even gets away with dropping an egg i there. I love the behavioural science stuff and i think the Emu wrens and Grass wrens here are a notch up the scale compared to fairy wrens.

[Netsurfer]

I was gonna post this link when I noticed your post, anyhow here is the same article published on yahoo.com
http://au.news.yahoo.com/a/-/latest/153 ... important/
But I doubt it very much there's to much truth in it, although I haven't tried it yet but I'm sure you can foster other Wren eggs or chicks just like you do with other species. There may be something to do with the Cuckoo chick, may be the sound they make, the color of the skin or the size of the chick.

"Im suprised the cuckoo even gets away with dropping an egg i there."
I love the behavioural science stuff and i think the Emu wrens and Grass wrens here are a notch up the scale compared to fairy wrens.

True, but what I don't understand is Superb Wrens being a little larger so the nest is a little larger, but I was watching my Red-backed busy build their tiny nest, can't imagine Cuckoo being able to get in, same as the White-winged, and certainly can't see how could they be able to squeeze in to parasite Emu Wren's nests. May be there are no Cuckoos that far North or they do not parasite some species of Wrens nests.

[garymc]

I have a pair of striated grasswrens that continually lay their eggs on the ground. Last season I picked one egg up and place it in the nest of a splendid (torquoise subspecies) wren which duely hatched the chick and reared it to 14 days. We had a very cold night and I lost the chick - I put it down to the cold but.....

13 to 14 days is generally the length of time a splendid spends in the nest before it fledges, so I believe the splendids did the job from their end, it was just the striated chick takes longer to develop than the splendids.

So, in captivity at least my one experience has been that fairy wrens (splendids at least) will feed foreign chicks.


Just yesterday I found a further two striated eggs on the ground. The only bird I had that was sitting on eggs was the red-backed wrens, so the eggs have gone in their nest. Will see how they go, but if they hatch this time I may pull the chicks at 8 or 9 days and try hand rearing them.

Also worth noting that a striated grasswren egg is 2 to 3 times the size of the two fairy wren species mentioned above.

[Netsurfer]

I have a pair of striated grasswrens that continually lay their eggs on the ground. Last season I picked one egg up and place it in the nest of a splendid (torquoise subspecies) wren which duely hatched the chick and reared it to 14 days. We had a very cold night and I lost the chick - I put it down to the cold but.....

13 to 14 days is generally the length of time a splendid spends in the nest before it fledges, so I believe the splendids did the job from their end, it was just the striated chick takes longer to develop than the splendids.

So, in captivity at least my one experience has been that fairy wrens (splendids at least) will feed foreign chicks.


Just yesterday I found a further two striated eggs on the ground. The only bird I had that was sitting on eggs was the red-backed wrens, so the eggs have gone in their nest. Will see how they go, but if they hatch this time I may pull the chicks at 8 or 9 days and try hand rearing them.

Also worth noting that a striated grasswren egg is 2 to 3 times the size of the two fairy wren species mentioned above.

It's a tedious job feeding young birds, I hate it I would wait and see if they are feeding them, if they are why bother. I have a Red Siskin I 'm feeding now, it's in the aviary but still begs for food, the moment he sees me walk in he's there flapping his wing. Strange, how they recognize you.