Instinctive Behaviour in Birds

Email

Whatsapp

Facebook

Pinterest

Twitter

Copy link

Birds are nothing but "glorified reptiles from which they have descended as evidenced from fossils like Archaeop terys, so most of the basic behaviour in birds is instinctive like that of reptiles. This book illustrated with 43 diagrams explains how their instinct helps them to survive and carry out their daily activities. Although they have some feelings we generally associate with humans, we should not com- pare them with our complex behaviours like fear, anger, happiness or sadness.

This book is aimed to enrich the minds of many young bird- watchers and attract them towards 'bird observation' rather than mere 'bird watching".

Dr. Kaushik Deuti He had a keen interest about the behaviour of birds since childhood which led him to complete his Bachelor of Science in Zoology from Asutosh College, Kolkata in 1992 and Master of Science from Calcutta University in 1994 and obtaining PhD degree from Utkal University, Bhubaneshwar in 2003. He is now a Scientist at the Zoological Survey of India, Kolkata where he researches on taxonomy, blogeography and behaviour of animals.

Dr. Mousumi Roy Daughter of an eminent artist, she learnt about the details of drawing sketches from her father since childhood. Her Interest in animals led her to complete her Bachelor of Science in Zoology from Dinabandhu Andrews College, Kolkata in 1998 and Master of Science in Zoology from Dar- jeeling Government College in 2000. She obtained PhD degree from Calcutta University in 2009 for research on Ecology of Benthic fauna of wetlands as a research scholar In Zoological Survey of India. She is now a lecturer at Kishore Bharati Bhagini Nivedita College, Behala, Kolkata. She has drawn most of the diagrams in this book.

I always had fascination for birds, be it an intelligent house crow or some beautiful species like barbets, which we so commonly see in our cities and villages, birds not only rule the sky but their instintive behaviour sometimes foresee an impending natural calamity. Unfortunately, many of us do not observe their behaviour even during our leisure time in spite of seeing many common species around us every day. In our country, almost everyone who lives in regions where house crows are present, might have seen how clever these birds are especially the ones who have selected an urban environment as their abode. Nonchalant, yet attentive, crows over the centuries have learnt the tricks of exploiting available re- sources amidst human presence. Crow is just one example and there are many more species which deserve to be mentioned for their intelligent behaviour.

In this book an attempt has been made by the authors to help the novice bird-watchers to understand about bird behaviour by writing the text in a very simple way. Although the authors have not extensively studied bird behaviour, they understood about the behaviour of birds by observing them in the field. No doubt there are many books in the market on animal behaviour in general and bird behaviour in particular, how- ever, this book has been written with lots of illustrations highlighting exactly how the bird performs such behaviour in its natural environment. By reading this book one gets intrigued as to how "intelligent" the birds really are but later realizes that they do everything because of their "instinct" and we ought to learn many more such behaviour patterns from them.

I am sure that this book "Instinctive behaviour in birds" will enrich the minds of many young birdwatchers and attract them towards 'bird observation' rather than mere 'bird watching'.

No part of this small book is a result of any original work done by us. Many people including some birdwatchers believe that like higher animals, birds are highly intelligent creatures. We just put forward this question to some of the more experienced ornithologists who have many years of field experience and hence an enormous amount of knowledge about birds and their behaviour. Their answers led us to search in the library for books on ethology related to instinctive behaviour of birds. Thus this compilation as we would like to call it, is just an attempt to let everyone know that although the processes by which birds function and carry out their daily activities are mostly instinctive, they also have some of the feelings we generally associate with humans. Our sole objective is to make nature lovers, students and beginners in bird-watching to realize that they should not assume that birds have distant aims in mind in doing what they do and can think like humans or feel "happy", "angry", "sad" or "afraid". This we hope will help them to better understand about the life of those amazing products of evolution called birds.