Aussie Finch Forum

Hi Folks,

I've been thinking about the breeding results of my Yellow Siskins from 2015/2016 and how these results make me think that maybe birds know the long range weather forecast.....so if my thoughts below sound a little weird please forgive me

With my first pair of Yellow Siskins I produced 7 young....6 cocks and 1 hen. My friend produced 6 from his pair with 5 hens and 1 cock. We have not had much rain in Melbourne and even less in my area (Northern suburbs), whereas my friend has had a reasonable amount of rain in his area (South East).

My theory is that birds produce a greater proportion of cocks to hens when they know food supply is going to be limited. With less rain comes less food, hence a greater proportion of cock birds.

If my theory is right I'd be interested in other members thoughts on how birds know if the long range weather forecast includes plenty of rain or not.

Cheers
Paul

I agree that they must know something. ..

Ive got canaries building nests on ice cold windy mornings. Once the eggs are laid its all warm weather.

Its luck or i have a pair of intelligent canaries.

GP,
Interesting to say the least but why produce more of the bird that can not lay eggs and therefore keep the species going? You and your friend should think yourselves lucky in that swapping hens /cocks keeps your program alive. I think everyone has had seasons in all sorts of finches where the cock to hen ratio has been 2 or 3 to 1. I remember a couple of years ago where I was lucky with my goulds where it was 3 to 1 hens as compared to cocks The following year it came back to near even. This is like comparing a good season to a bad. Weather and temperature surely does play a part. After all that is why we do what we do, we learn everything new every day. If it was this simple everyone would do it.

Anyhow, good to see that someone is trying to work out what happens, after all the weather people have no idea. If only our little friends could talk?

Good luck

Ken.

I don't disagree but in my collection the length of hot weather and high temp. seems to mean more hens
I agree they seem to know.

Same. I've had exactly the same thoughts. I agree they have predictive powers, and it's not mere coincidence.

It makes sense that evolution would endow them with this ability, because being good at this would confer grass-eating birds a huge survival advantage. They must have some pretty subtle programming that reads patterns-within-patterns, that the BOM have yet to figure out!

The smarter we as a species think we are, the more distance we place between ourselves & nature. Genuine bushies & traditional native people use the behaviour & movements of animals (inc. birds, insects,etc) as accurate predictors of weather. The more we exclusively rely on blind faith in modern science the more unnatural (& useless) we become IMO. Nature has many signs and lessons which we are yet to recognise or have long since forgotten.

Tiaris wrote:The smarter we as a species think we are, the more distance we place between ourselves & nature. Genuine bushies & traditional native people use the behaviour & movements of animals (inc. birds, insects,etc) as accurate predictors of weather. The more we exclusively rely on blind faith in modern science the more unnatural (& useless) we become IMO. Nature has many signs and lessons which we are yet to recognise or have long since forgotten.

Pretty much sums it up Tiars nature runs to no set program.