Auditory perception of hawks and owls for passerine alarm calls

Citation
Kj. Jones et Wl. Hill, Auditory perception of hawks and owls for passerine alarm calls, ETHOLOGY, 107(8), 2001, pp. 717-726
Citations number
23
Language
INGLESE
art.tipo
Article
Categorie Soggetti
Animal Sciences","Neurosciences & Behavoir
Journal title
ETHOLOGY
ISSN journal
0179-1613 → ACNP
Volume
107
Issue
8
Year of publication
2001
Pages
717 - 726
Database
ISI
SICI code
0179-1613(200108)107:8<717:APOHAO>2.0.ZU;2-D
Abstract
The auditory perception of eight species of raptors was examined to test th e hypothesis of Marler (1955) that these avian predators are unable to loca te certain songbird alarm calls. In particular, Marler proposed that mobbin g calls have characteristics that enhance their locatability and that these characteristics are absent in the high-frequency 'seet' calls given by ind ividual songbirds. To test this hypothesis, the behavioral responses of fou r species of owls and four species of hawks, housed at two different raptor rehabilitation sites, to tape recorded alarm calls were examined. Each rap tor was exposed to a random order of 10 trials of mobbing calls and 10 tria ls of a seet call. Responses were scored based upon head angle orientations . Hawks and owls responded more often and more accurately to mobbing calls than to sect calls. In general, owls responded to significantly more calls than hawks. The results are consistent with Marler's hypothesis that raptor s have difficulty locating passerine sect calls. Nevertheless, future studi es should test mobbing calls that vary in their frequency and duration (Fic ken & Popp 1996) to determine whether some mobbing calls are more difficult to locate than others.