This behavior was witnessed over the Xmas break and I forgot to mention it. But Greg's post on Crows just reminded me.
While watching the ~500 member Rosy-Finch flock at a friend's house, the following occurred. A house finch flew into a window and lie stunned and mostly immobile on their deck with hundreds of rosy-finches around it. Suddenly, a few rosy-finches pounced on the motionless house finch and started pecking it. One even started plucking the hapless house finch; pulling out mouthfuls of feathers and scattering them as you might see when a falcon is dispatching a recent kill preparing it for eating. Well - the woman of the house gasped in horror at this; ran out the sliding door, shoo-ing off the rosies, and picked up the hapless house finch. She cuddled it a bit, stroked it, to which it amazingly perked up and after just 30 seconds of this flew off none the worse. Amazing. But more so amazing to me, what behavior explains why this species would attack another bird. From BNA, food items include "Seeds, with some other plant matter and insects." Was it really a hunger driven attack? There was plenty of seed to go around for all. Was it mob mentality? Anyone else seen this from finches? Jeff J Jones ( <mailto:[email protected]> [email protected]) Teller County - 8500' - Montane Woodlands -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Colorado Birds" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/cobirds?hl=en.
