Posted by:
CKing
at Thu Jun 12 09:03:40 2008 [ Email Message ] [ Show All Posts by CKing ]
>>I don't have mockingbirds here but you Florida guys have shrikes, jays and mockers all over your yard. Try this with the kids:
>>collect some half inch dowels or conduit pipe and paint them in mono, bi, and tri colored patterns and see how the birds react when the models are placed near the nest or favorite feeder.>>
Why not use the real thing? Tricolored snakes are commonly found in pet stores. If a scientist really really wants to do a meaningful experiment, he can walk into just about any pet store that sells reptiles and buy a tricolored kingsnake. If the warning coloration hypothesis is correct, then he won't need more than one snake. OTOH, it can get pretty expensive quickly if he has to keep getting new ones to replace those that have been maimed or killed to continue his experiment. LOL.
>>I have a published study somewhere in the house that was done years ago with painted dowels and the results boiled down to more bands, more fear. Birds ignored the mono color, 50% were stressed at the bi color model and 100% were alarmed/agressive to the tri-color model.>>
So, birds are afraid of painted sticks. Wow! Very informative experiment! Now, let's try the same experiment with hawks and live snakes, if the scientist can get a large enough grant from the government that is. It would not be pretty to see the hawks gobble up these frighteningly expensive tricolor snakes. Sticks are cheaper, but I think a bird, any bird, can probably figure out that the sticks are not snakes.
>>If we had hawks to work with, it would be ideal. Anybody keeping a hawk or two or have a nest in the back yard?
>>Jeff
Yes, a hawk would be an ideal experimentalal subject, since it would almost certainly put to rest the very idea that the tricolored kingsnakes have warning colors. If the hawk can talk, it may say something like "yum yum red." LOL. So far, I have not seen any scientist experiment with hawks and real life tricolored kingsnakes. I wonder why? Are they afraid of what they may observe? 
As a substitute for hawks, I suggest trying the same experiment with domestic chickens and tricolored kingsnakes. The results would not be very pretty, at least for those who have to pay for the snakes and those who support the coral snake mimicry theory.
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RE: fun experiment - CKing, Thu Jun 12 09:03:40 2008
