Interspecies Cooperation and Communication: Black-capped Chickadee and Tufted Titmouse

 In theory, every species expends its energy to further the continuation of its own genetic code. One might assume that means not aiding other species of dissimilar genetic code, especially those that compete for the same resources in a common environment. Essentially, however, it is in the interest of every species to maximize its return on investment in terms of genetics. So, if helping a species that competes for the same resources results in a higher overall survival rate of one's own species, then helping that other species survive is an overall net win. It's basic game theory.

For the strategy to be effective, the effect of the lost resources taken by the other species has to be outweighed by the benefit gained from having the other species sharing those resources.

Let's look closer at two example species: the tufted titmouse and the black-capped chickadee. In New England, and specifically where I live in New Hampshire, the Tufted Titmouse and the black-capped chickadee share the same territory. Where you find one of these two species, you are quite likely to find the other. They will even visit bird feeders together. They generally eat the same foods and should be protective of food resources against one another, but they are not. So, it seems, the benefit to each species of having the other around must outweigh negative effects of sharing available food resources.

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What sort of aid might they give each other? One type of cooperation is that they both give vocal warnings when they notice a potential threat and each species responds to the threat call of the other. This gives the advantage of extra sets of eyes watching out for danger when the birds are feeding. In this video you can here the alarm calls of both the chickadee (the familiar CHICK-A-DEE-DEE=DEE call) and of the tufted titmouse whose call seems to me tonally similar to the DEE-DEE-DEE part of the chickadee alarm call. At twenty-two seconds into the video, you'll hear the tufted titmouse's alarm call. At forty seconds, the alarm call of the black-capped chickadee.  Both bird alarm calls are meant to be loud and attention getting, so that birds in the nearby area can hear them and be alerted to the threat. Chickadees even change their call to indicate the severity of the threat and whether the threat is from below or from the sky. In that sense, it's a primitive language in that they are communicating specific meanings with their vocalizations.

In the case of these two bird species, it seems, the benefit of having that extra warning when there is possible danger outweighs the burden of sharing food and habitat with each other. 

What are some other forms of interspecies cooperation that you've noticed? Let us know in the comments below. 

We have a Wild Animals YouTube Channel

 In addition to this blog highlighting all the animal species that I find in my yard in New Hampshire, We also have a YouTube channel featuring Wild Animals in Nature . On that channel, we are presenting videos not only of animals that we've found in our yard, but other animals that we've encountered in our travels. 

Currently, we have 31 videos posted featuring everything from Prairie Dogs, Porcupines, Moose, Eagles, and Whales. We'll be adding more on a regular basis. Subscribers who click the Notifications Tab when subscribing will get a YouTube alert when New Animal Videos as posted to our channel. When relevant, we'll include links or embedded videos on the pages of this blog to videos we've taken of the specific animal found in our yard. We're also going to try to create complete video entries with all the information about the specific animal as you'd find on this blog. That's still a work in progress at this point, but here's an early example featuring information the Great Egret (Ardea alba) which as it turns out isn't really an Egret at all! Turn on sound or Closed Captions for information about this magnificent bird.

We also encourage you to subscribe to the YouTube Channel: Wild Animals in Nature. Our goal for that channel is to get 1000 subscribers. As you can se, we have a long way to go, but every new subscriber helps. If that channel becomes as popular as this blog, we should have no problem.

YouTube channel subscriptions are free and can be anonymous depending in your own account settings.  

Our intent with the YouTube Channel isn't to replace this blog, but to augment it with video content and to provide video content of animals that may not be found in our yard as well. We encourage you to leave comments on the videos to let us know which ones you like and why.

As always, thank you for your support!

Gray Tree Frog in Its Green Coat

 When an animal has a specific color in its name, you expect it to be that color, but that isn't always the case. Take, for example, the Gray Tree Frog. This small climbing frog can be brownish-gray, bright green or any shade in between those two extremes. In fact, its Latin name is Hyla versicolor  (or Dryophytes versicolor) which means many colored tree frog or changing color tree frog. 

Gray Tree Frog (Hyla versicolor/ Dryophytes versicolor)
from WhatLivesinMyYard.Blogspot.com
Photo: Brad Sylvester, all rights reserved

Tree frogs are climbers. They climb trees (and houses) using the sticky pads found on the end of each of their toes. It is thought that they climb to escape predators like snakes which mostly live on the ground in the range of the Gray Tree Frog. The toe pads provide a suction-cup adhesion that lets them stick to smooth surfaces. For rougher surfaces, the tree frog can still climb by wrapping its legs around to the sides or back of smaller branches and gripping. The gripping pressure is created by using its muscles to provide opposing pressure to both sides of the branch. By using both gripping pressure and suction cup adhesion, the gray tree frog is able to climb faster than it could using either one of the methods alone.

Tree frogs mate and lay eggs in the water of ponds or vernal pools. The eggs will be attached to underwater plants. They will hatch as tadpoles and live in the water until they grow legs and can live on land. Once they leave the water, they spend most of their time in trees, except when hibernating in the winter. They tend to hibernate under leaf litter or hidden under tree roots. During the active warmer months, they may hide in the deep crevices of tree bark. They are usually found in moist environments.

Gray Tree Frog with Suction Cup Toes
Photo: Brad Sylvester, all rights reserved

During a rain, they may move from place to place without fear of drying out. That's why they're most often seen on rainy evenings. The Gray Tree Frog shown in these photos was found right next to my front door on the siding of my house during a light rain when I came home after dark in early August.

The tree frog calls out by inflating its throat like a big bubble and using the released air to create a surprisingly loud trilling sound. 

Gray Tree Frog tadpoles mostly eat plant matter and detritus in the water. Once they leave the water as adults, they are insectivores. They'll eat most small insects that can be swallowed in one gulp such as ants, crickets, beetles, flies, and even small moths.

The Gray Tree Frog measures 1-2 inches long as an adult. They have a distinctly bumpy skin unlike some of the smoother frog species.

Taxonomy of the Gray Tree Frog

KingdomAnimalia

PhylumChordata

ClassAmphibia

OrderAnura

FamilyHylidae

GenusDryophytes

SpeciesDryophytes versicolor

Hairy Woodpecker (Leuconotopicus villosus) vs. Downy Woodpecker (Dryobates pubescens) Identification

Hairy Woodpeckers and Downy Woodpeckers are common visitors in my yard, in New England, and throughout much of the United States. They are found as far north as Alaska and Canada and south to Central America. They primarily live in forests. They have also adapted to suburban areas as well as long as there is an abundance of trees around. like most woodpeckers, the hairy Woodpecker eats insects that it finds in the back or digs out of the wood of trees. They are also attracted to suet feeders and bird feeders containing nuts or peanuts. 

Size Difference between Downy and Hairy Woodpeckers

The Hairy Woodpecker is often seen in the same areas as the similar Downy Woodpecker. They can be difficult to tell apart at first glance. If you see them side by side, the Hairy Woodpecker is larger, measuring as much as 10 inches long to the tip of the tail. The Downy Woodpecker, on the hand, only reaches about 6.75" long. 

Beak Length Difference between Hairy and Downy Woodpeckers

The bill of the Hairy Woodpecker is also quite a bit longer than the shorter bill of the Downy Woodpecker. If the beak of the hairy Woodpecker is just about the same length as its head, while the Downy Woodpecker's beak is less than half the length of its head. In the video of the Hairy Woodpecker below, taken in my yard, you can see the length of the beak compared to the length of the head. This is perhaps an easier way to identify whether the bird is a Hairy or Downy Woodpecker when you don't have both together to compare overall size. 

Hairy Woodpecker searching for food in a birch tree.

Pecking Rhythm Difference Between Hairy and Downy Woodpeckers

Notice the rhythm and speed of the pecking in the video as well. The hairy Woodpecker tends to have a slower "drumbeat" than the Downy Woodpecker. This can be difficult to determine if you only have one of these two pecking and can't compare them directly, but the Downy Woodpecker's pecking is often so fast that you can't even count the individual beats. 

Both of these two woodpecker species are black and white with a white stripe down the middle of their back. In both species, if you see a red patch on the back of the head, then you know that it's a male bird.

Woodpecker Diet

While both are largely insectivores, they will eat nuts and other foods high in fats. They search out calorie dense foods like suet, peanut butter, or nuts when visiting backyard bird feeders. They use their sharp pointed toes to cling to vertical surfaces and will even hang upside down in order to reach food sources.  They use their tails to brace themselves against that surface to give them leverage to peck forcefully into the wood and bark of a tree.

Taxonomy of Downy and Hairy Woodpeckers

You will notice from the title of this post that these two woodpeckers are not only different species, but also different genera. Despite their very similar appearance and behaviors, they are not that closely related. You have to go all the way back to Family classification find common lineage.

Hairy Woodpecker

Kingdom: Animalia

Phylum: Chordata

Class: Aves

Order: Piciformes

Family Picidae

Genus: leuconotopicus

Species: Leuconotpicus villosus

Downy Woodpecker

Kingdom: Animalia

Phylum: Chordata

Class: Aves

Order: Piciformes

Family Picidae

Genus: Dryobates

Species: Dryobates pubescens

Sharp-shinned Hawk

Birds are fascinating. They are actually dinosaurs, part of the Dromaeosaur family. Of course, they have evolved and changed since the classic age of dinosaurs to become the many different birds we all know, but they are still true dinosaurs. One such dinosaur that I saw in my yard on April 18, 2022, is the Sharp-shinned Hawk. Unfortunately, I did not have time to get a picture. 

The Sharp-shinned Hawk looks much like a Cooper's hawk, but smaller. Both of these two hawks have incredible agility in flight. They can weave through the forest, among and around trees and shrubs at high speed. They have this adaptation to help them hunt. Their diet mainly consists of songbirds. The sharp-shinned hawk uses its speed and agility to chase down and catch songbirds. They will sometimes sit overlooking backyard birdfeeders waiting for a meal to fly in. 

The Cooper's hawk similarly eats other birds, but because it is larger than the Sharp-shinned hawk it can catch larger prey. In fact, several years ago I was hiking on the mountain near my house when I found a Cooper's Hawk eating a Sharp-shinned Hawk!

Taxonomy of the Sharp-shinned Hawk

Kingdom: Animalia

Phyllum: Chordata

Class: Aves

Order: Accipitriformes

Family: Accipitridae

Genus: Accipiter

Species: Accipiter striatus

Habitat of the Sharp-shinned Hawk

Variations of the Sharp-shinned hawk can be found through North and South America and the Caribbean. Those in the colder northern climates typically migrate south for the winter.

Reproduction of the Accipiter striatus

The Sharp-shinned haws lays as many as eight eggs or as few as three in a hidden nests. The eggs are about 1.5" long. They take about 30 days to hatch. After hatching the baby birds stay in the nest, protected by the mother for about 3 weeks, give our take a few days. During this time the father will continue hunting and bringing meat back to the nest. Once the babies leave the nest, they will stay nearby and still call for food from the parents, who continue to feed and protect them for about another four weeks.

Staus of the Accipiter striatus Population

The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species says the Sharp-shinned Hawk is a species of Least Concern and has a growing population. Although numbers dropped in the 1960's and 1970's, they are rebounding with new environmental protections such as banning the widespread use of harmful pesticides.

Paper Wasp Nest Construction

This photo shows a paper wasp nest that has been torn open, most likely by some animal looking to eat the larvae and wasps inside. One of the most interesting things about this particular view, esssentially a cross section of the nest, is that it shows the multiple layers of construction with air spaces in between each layer. This is a very effective mean of insulation to help keep heat in the central region of the nest. Heat would be generated their by the metabolic activity of the wasps and would keep the center and especially the queen, from freezing during the cold New England winters. While I can't tell who made this nest, it was certainly a wasp of some type. Remember all hornets are wasps, but not all wasps are hornets. While we don't know the exact species, we do know how wasps make nests like this one. It is made out of paper, but the wasps also make the paper itself. They chew bits of wood and mix it with saliva to form a pulp which dries to the papery material you see here. Wasps often build their nests in old sheds or near human houses because there is often wood readyily found near the homes of people. While these types of nests are often build under the shelter of a shed roof or eaves, they can also be built on a tree branch or in a shrub. Some species, notably yellow-jackets, build them in the ground accessed by a small hole in the ground that leads down to the nest. Wasps, then, are capable of making wood-pulp paper and applying it bit by bit to around the edges to form a large pattern that eventually turns into an enclosed, multi-layer ball- shaped hive- almost as if it were being 3D printed.

We're Back- Thanks to Two New Sponsors!

 After a long hiatus, What Lives in my Yard is back! Thanks to two new sponsors, we will once again be making regular posts highlighting the wild (and domestic) animals that live in out forested yard in New Hampshire, USA. We'd like to thank www.MySylvanGardens.com who grows and sells a wide variety of houseplants from Cactus to jungle tropicals and everything in between. We'd also like to thank www.EpiphyllumsOnline.com -a premiere source for Epiphyllums, also known as Orchid Cactus plants, a true cactus that has adapted to life in the tropical forest and offers huge colorful flowers! Please check out both of these sponsors to make their support and our continued operation permanent!

Photo is copyrighted by EpiphyllumsOnline. Used with permission, all rights reserved

Starting this week, we'll once again be adding new creatures to our master list and spotlight pages. We've just received about 10 inches of fresh powdery snow so our first new addition will focus on those creatures active in this kind of weather. 

We are delighted to be back. We hope you'll be as happy with our new posts as you were with our old ones. We've amassed hundreds of thousands of page views and the site continues to draw new visitors despite having been inactive for several years. Thank you!