The special behavior of birds at the beginning of the mating season, which helps to attract a female or male and bring them into a state of readiness for mating. One of the forms of animal communication. Showing is expressed differently: birds can sing, make current flights, take special poses in which brightly colored plumage is demonstrated, arrange fights and “tournaments”, build false nests, etc. Showing is especially characteristic of polygamous birds (for example, for black grouse) ; their males gather on lekking grounds separately from the females. In rare cases, polyandry - females (flat-nosed phalaropes) lek. In monogamous birds, the male lek around his female.
black grouse
Particularly peculiar are the lekking of cranes, which continue even after the birds break into pairs. They are located on the site (near a river or lake) in a circle or in two or more rows; some of them then enter the arena and begin to jump around each other in a comical way, bending over, stretching their necks, spreading their wings; tired, the dancers return to the circle of their comrades, who greet them with bows and squats, to which those who are welcomed respond in kind; then a new party enters the arena, and so on. Females also take part in such dances.
Grouse birds live settled where natural conditions, and above all the climate, vary greatly with the seasons of the year. Accordingly, the life of our birds also changes. Its seasonal aspects together make up a single annual cycle, similar in all members of the family. The most crucial moment for each organism is reproduction, preparation for which begins with the first glimpses of spring.
The further north the grouse birds live, the more severe and longer the winter, the sharper and more distinct their connection with the first phase of spring, so aptly called by M. Prishvin the spring of light. Signs of mating revival of our birds appear on sunny March days, when frosts are still raging and deep snows lie. Their way of life is still completely winter - the main part of the day they are still in snow chambers, although they often take a daytime rest in the sun in shallow surface holes in places protected from the wind. But gradually more and more time the birds spend in the open air, and with the compaction of the snow surface and the formation of March crusts, they increasingly roam the snow, passing without visible target significant distances. On especially warm days, males already begin to perform some elements of their mating ritual: they raise their tail, slightly set aside their lowered wings and, having ruffled their plumage, do so-called jogging - they walk several meters in a straight line with quick steps. At the same time, characteristic traces remain on the loose snow, framed by stripes from the tips of the wings - drawings so familiar to ornithologists and hunters. Capercaillie is already drawing, - someone will report, and behind this lies a whole gamut of ideas and concepts associated with the entry of spring into a decisive phase.
The first signs of mating revival of males appear in a similar way both in birds living in flocks and in wintering alone. They begin to run on the snow, dragging their wings at half-mast, make jumps and current take-offs. In a flock, such a revival can cover all the males, but the females do not react in any way to their actions. Grouse, wintering alone, also begin to run in the snow. When two males meet, they can suddenly run several tens of meters side by side in a parallel course, as if testing the opponent's inflexibility to defend their territory. In black grouse and capercaillie, such a revival usually occurs at feeding places and is not associated with lekeries - traditional areas of spring lekking, although on occasion it can also occur on them. The mating revival, more and more often embracing males, stops with every deterioration in the weather.
The height of mating is usually associated with the appearance and rapid expansion of thawed patches and falls on a relatively short period when mating activity also includes females. At this time, they regularly visit leks and respond to the courtship of males. How small such a period is in comparison with the entire period of displaying can be judged by the example of capercaillie. In the Leningrad region, they lek from the beginning of April to the end of May, i.e., almost 60 days, while the height of the lekking with the presence of females on the leks lasts 10-14 days, falling in the last ten days of April.
After the females, having laid their eggs, begin to incubate, the current activity of the males quickly fades. But still, it continues in the early quiet mornings until the summer, when the males begin to change plumage - molting. This process requires a lot of energy, birds lose weight, weaken, fly worse and try to stay in the most secluded places. Naturally, in such a situation, there is no time for talking. But as soon as the change of plumage is completed, and this happens at the end of August - the beginning of September, the males are again ready for display and proceed to it quite often in appropriate weather. When the duration of the autumn days approximately coincides with the spring days, the display of many species of grouse is quite active both on the leks and on the feeding grounds. The difficulties of winter life again stop the flow, but it can begin again with strong and prolonged thaws even in the middle of winter. In fact, birds such as black grouse or capercaillie lek all year and their lekking is interrupted only by summer molting and winter frosts.
Some biologists are inclined to explain the longer duration of the spring lekking of males compared to the short period of sexual activity of females by the possibility for a female, who for some reason has lost her clutch, to reappear on the lek for re-mating. This is quite likely, but has not yet found actual confirmation. There are no direct observations of pairing at currents after the end of the main phase of currents.
Grouse are one of the few birds in the world that are characterized by group display, although it is characteristic of only eight species. The main attributes of collective lekking are a special lekking ground, where birds regularly lek, daily gathering of males on it, active lekking in the morning and evening dawns, and the action of a system of territorial areas on the lekking ground, on each of which one male leks, expelling all rivals from him. Group talk is a kind of fair for grooms, demonstrating beauty, strength and skill, helping to capture the most attractive site. Females, on the other hand, play the role of picky shoppers, walking around the current, as if in a bazaar, and choosing a partner according to their taste. There is not the slightest coercion on the part of males; the choice always remains with the female. What criteria are used by females looking after the goods is still unclear, but the most important importance of the current section has been firmly established. The closer he is to the center of the current, the more likely the male is to get the recognition of the female. And there is nothing surprising in the fact that a particularly fierce struggle between males, in which the strongest wins, flares up because of these areas. And as a result, you can see how up to a dozen females gather around one male on the lekking ground, while there are not a single one near the rest.
In the days of the former abundance of grouse birds, collective leks were of enormous size and, gathering hundreds of males, were a fantastic sight. Now large currents are a rarity.
The structure of the collective current is based on a strict two- or even three-level hierarchy of males. The strongest and most active males at the age of 2-4 years are on the first stage. They capture key areas on the current. At the second stage are two-year-old or very old birds. They have less strength, but they are able to occupy and hold areas around the center of the current. The third stage is made up of one-year-old males, which either occupy the most marginal areas, or do not have them at all. The males of the lower levels of the hierarchy are constantly striving to penetrate higher, which happens if one of the higher ones leaves the game. This is the general scheme, and it is easy to see that it provides an advantage in reproduction for the most active and strong males. This system does not always work perfectly and without failures, but its main functional meaning lies precisely in this. From this it is clear that any intervention in the complex process of reproduction, which is mating, especially the intervention of a hunter, is extremely dangerous, and therefore unacceptable. We will return to the issue of protecting grouse birds at the end of the book, but now we will note that hunting on the current is barbarism, a manifestation, at best, of the dense ignorance of people who allow themselves or allow others to do so.
Collective current is not an absolute law for the species. In some cases, most often associated with a small number or with a strong pressure of hunters, males of typically lekking species pass to solitary lekking. This is how, for example, both wood grouse and black grouse act, i.e., the process that forms the collective display is reversible.
But how do species lek that do not form collective leks? First of all, the principle of choosing a male by a female. them are completely preserved. The normal structure of marital relations is as follows. The male occupies an area, the area of which can be quite large, and here, usually at 2-3 favorite points, he tirelessly lekking in the expectation that the female will hear him and find him. As in the collective lekking, the male defends this area from rivals and mates with all the females who honor him with their attention. At a high population density, the sites of males can be located close to each other, and then the males hear their neighbors well or even see them. From here it is already one step to an even closer grouping of males and the emergence of a collective current, which, however, does not occur with them. Of our black grouse, this type of display is characteristic of the Asiatic wild grouse and tundra partridge.
Only three species in the family are true monogamous. These are common hazel grouse, Severtsov's hazel grouse and white partridge. Males of these species seize an area sufficient for both lekking and nesting of the female, guarding it to the best of their ability. The female who has chosen this owner stays with him for the entire nesting period and breeds offspring within his area.
The mating itself is a process during which the male performs all the elements of the mating ritual characteristic of the species. Its main purpose is to attract the female and encourage her to mate. This is served by a variety of postures, various ornaments and sounds, both vocal (vocal) and mechanical, produced by wings, tail feathers or legs. Each element rarely appears in its pure form, usually the current ritual is a complex set of movements, postures, color demonstrations and sounds.
In almost all grouse birds, the females, as already mentioned, are painted very similarly, in a rather variegated pattern. The purpose of such an attire is camouflage, which is so necessary for a female incubating clutch in a relatively open nest. For males, it's a different matter. They are characterized by contrastingly colored areas of plumage, bright colors, decorating feathers specific in shape and color. The males of capercaillie, black grouse and sagebrush grouse differ most sharply from females.
In the mating ritual, the tail is very important, which rises vertically during mating and opens like a fan at 180 °. In many species, the tail feathers (they are called tail feathers) are elongated and wide, so that when the tail is unfolded, they form a continuous surface. An open fan has its own patterns different types: these are either bright transverse stripes (grouse), or white spots of various shapes on a black background (grouse), or a white border crowning a black surface (blue grouse, wild grouse, white partridges). In black grouse, the color of the tail feathers is completely black, but the central feathers are much shorter than the outer ones, which gives the tail a forked shape, and the tops of the outer, longest tail feathers are also strongly curved. The shape of the tail of the sharp-tailed black grouse is original, the males of which have a soft color of the female type. Their tail feathers are very short, except for the sharply elongated two central pairs, which protrude far beyond the top of the open fan. The strongly elongated tail of the collared hazel grouse, when folded, performs the function of a support during mating, when the male beats out a characteristic drum roll with its wings.
Many American grouse have evolved special structures that operate only during the mating season. On the sides of the neck, they developed patches of bare skin, usually hidden by overlapping feathers. When drawn, they acquire a bright color - yellow, pink or red - and under the influence of a sharply expanding esophagus, they swell on the sides of the neck with colored bubbles of various sizes. In addition to the decorating function, they act as resonators, amplifying the sounds made by males. Such neck blisters are especially effective in blue grouse, in which their bright red coloration seems even brighter in contrast to the white frame of feathers that open around the blisters in a corolla. Our grouse also have the beginnings of such formations. For example, in a field black grouse, during displaying, the neck sometimes swells so much that patches of bare skin are shown on its sides.
And finally, one cannot fail to say about the eyebrows of grouse birds. These are areas of the skin above the eyes, devoid of feathers, really similar in outline to the eyebrows, where a loose tissue penetrated by blood vessels is developed, forming a surface of tubercles or rod-shaped outgrowths. Usually, a small comb runs along the upper edge of such an eyebrow. For the main part of the year, the eyebrow, which is especially strongly developed in males, does not function and in to a large extent hidden by overlapping feathers. But with the beginning of the current, the eyebrows swell and sharply increase in size. Thanks to the pigments present in these areas of the skin, and the blood that overflows the vessels, the color of the eyebrow becomes bright red. Depending on the influx of blood, the color of the eyebrows can change in the same bird from yellow-red to bright scarlet within a few minutes. In an excited male, swollen eyebrows are distinguished by large ridges on the sides of the head, and from the side it seems that his red cap is on his head.
There are two types of eyebrows in grouse birds. In most species, the entire surface is covered with bushy outgrowths that form an eyebrow roller. Such eyebrows reach their maximum size in field and blue grouse. In other species, the surface of the eyebrow is dotted with small tubercles, but along the upper edge there is a wide lobe, often equal in area to the eyebrow itself. In a calm state, this blade hangs down on the eyebrow, but in an excited male it swells up.
and rises vertically, which in total doubles the area of the eyebrow. Such an arrangement of eyebrows is characteristic of all types of white partridges. In the Caucasian black grouse, the eyebrow structure is of an intermediate nature: it has both a small ridge along the upper edge and bushy outgrowths along the entire surface of the ridge.
The males of the closest relatives of grouse - pheasant birds - often have brightly colored (usually red) bare patches of skin on their heads, occupying a significant surface, as well as fleshy outgrowths (remember the comb of a rooster). But grouse birds, living most of the year at sub-zero temperatures, cannot afford such a luxury. Hence the peculiarities of the structure of their eyebrows. For example, in the tundra and white partridges, which lek in the very north of their range during severe frosts, the eyebrow folds in half in the intervals between lekking and is covered by surrounding feathers. The good protection of the eyebrows of grouse birds is evidenced by at least the fact that there are no cases of their frostbite.
In most species of the family, vocal elements form a very important part of the mating ritual. Their nature is very different. This is a thin whistle, and clicking, and gurgling, and vibrating or buzzing sounds. The original purpose of such songs, no doubt, was to facilitate the meeting of partners in a dense forest, in the dark pre-dawn twilight, when the males are especially reckless. Such a function has survived to this day, although it is difficult to find a relationship between sound volume, habitat conditions or the size of males. In particular, our field and American great steppe grouse have the loudest songs. In calm weather, they can be heard for 3.5 km. These are birds of open habitats, but the current one has open places Caucasian black grouse, males on the current are generally silent.
On forest grouse birds, the loudest song is in the stone capercaillie. Its castanets can be heard in good weather at a distance of up to 1800 m. And the larger common capercaillie has one of the quietest songs that you will not hear further than 250 m. m.
In addition to vocal, grouse can also make mechanical sounds. Particularly noteworthy in this regard is the collared hazel grouse. A European who has come to the North American spring forest for the first time will immediately pay attention to a loud, sonorous, drum trill accelerating towards the end - a series of claps lasting about 11 seconds. In terms of sound, it is very reminiscent of the trill of our black woodpecker - yellow and audible at a distance of 500 m. tail, and flaps its wings with all its might, as if applauding. The accelerated filming helped later to understand what exactly produces the sounds; this is described in an essay dedicated to the collared hazel grouse.
Mechanical sounds also accompany one of the most widespread elements of the current ritual - the current take-off. The bird, as it were, jumps up, making several vigorous flapping of its wings. Often, at the top of the takeoff, the male freezes for a split second or turns around. The height of such a takeoff is up to 2 m, and its feature- emphatically loud clapping of wings. In a number of species, this take-off turns into current flight, in which the wings operate in the same mode and produce equally loud pops. These flights are undoubtedly of a demonstration nature, scaring off rivals and attracting females. In some species, in the course of evolution, current take-off has taken rather original forms. Actually, the work of the wings of a collared hazel grouse, knocking out a drum trill, is a modified current take-off performed on the spot. Traces of the former current rise are also visible during a special analysis of the peculiar mating ritual of the sagebrush black grouse, which is described below.
The methods of mating among male birds are very diverse and are expressed by special mating games, fights and singing. The current male is more visible to enemies and at the same time less sensitive and cautious; consequently, his life at this time is in great danger. With this in mind, and observing birds in a natural setting, try to find answers to two questions:
- Why is singing in the form of singing found mainly among small species of birds?
- Why field lark sings not sitting near the nest, but only rising up and flying in the air "between heaven and earth"?
Peculiar forms of lekking, as if replacing singing, can be observed in woodpeckers (“drumroll”, heard in the forests since March and produced by quick beak beats) and in snipe (“heavenly lamb” - bleating sounds heard over swampy meadows and produced vibration of the tail feathers, when a flying bird, spreading its tail, makes a throw down and “sings with its tail” - Fig. 240).
Incubating females that nest in open areas avoid extermination by the fact that their coloration is usually in harmony with the environment and is protective (remember the characteristic examples of such coloration!). In males, the coloration is more diverse. Sometimes males are colored similarly to females or only slightly brighter than them, and in general their coloration remains protective. This happens in birds that live in pairs and in which the male takes part in caring for the offspring.
In cases of pronounced sexual dimorphism in birds living in "polygamy" (many chicken, wild ducks), the plumage of females who have to incubate eggs and nurse their offspring has a more modest partridge color and even big bird inconspicuous (Fig. 241), while their males wear a brighter outfit.
In these cases, the life of the male turns out to be less precious for the preservation of the species, since he does not take part in caring for the offspring, and other males take over the females in the event of his death.
But in birds that nest in closed shelters - in hollows of trees, in crevices of rocks or in earthen burrows, both males and females can be equally bright and variegated. We see this in an ordinary pigeon (in the south - nests in crevices of rocks, in our country - in the dark nooks and crannies of our buildings), in various woodpeckers (nest in a hollow), in a starling (in a hollow or artificial birdhouse), and in the southern parts of the USSR hoopoe (Fig. 242), in the roller (nests in hollows), in the bee-eater, in the kingfisher (nests in earthen burrows). Our small songbirds, whose nests are hidden in the dense foliage of trees and shrubs, can also be bright.
black grouse
Quite peculiar are the currents of cranes, which continue even after the birds break into pairs. They are located on the site (near a river or lake) in a circle or in two or more rows; some of them then enter the arena and begin to jump around each other in a comical way, bending over, stretching their necks, spreading their wings; tired, the dancers return to the circle of their comrades, who greet them with bows and squats, to which those who are welcomed respond in kind; then a new party enters the arena, and so on. Females also take part in such dances.
Literature
- // Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron: In 86 volumes (82 volumes and 4 additional). - St. Petersburg. , 1890-1907.
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See what "Bird Talking" is in other dictionaries:
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