Dear fellow chatters,
I'm trying to find information about abnormal hatchling-like behavior in adult birds, especially feeding cries in severely stressed or starving birds. I found in the archives a post from Julian Bell dated July 10, 2009 that describes something like this in starving crossbills [ see
http://www.naturalbornbirder.com/articles/desparate_crossbills.html ], so I thought he or others on the list might be able to tell me more.
Julian's post describes an adult female feeding an adult male. Julian, if you're reading this: Did you see/hear the male solicit food from this female, via gaping bill and/or hatchling feeding calls?
Are there any reports in the published literature of similar behavior? The only other report like this I could find on the web was a statement, without any literature citation, that underfed captive raptors sometimes show abnormal hatchling-like behavior [ see
http://www.fallinghawks.com/salty/starving.htm ].
The reason for my interest in this is that I'm writing a book that touches on, among other things, the instinctive behavior of neonates. I'm interested in the question of the persistence into adulthood of the neural circuitry that underlies such behaviors, as evidenced by the reversion to such behavior under abnormal conditions that in some way mimic the neonatal condition.
If you know of any more examples of this (not necessarily in birds), and especially if you could point me to books or papers that describe it, that would be extremely helpful.
Thanks and best wishes,
Jack Wathey
San Diego, CA, USA
jcwathey@...
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