Viewing page 562 of 751

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

10

Pezopetes, Oct.9, 1960, III  

lower intensity pattern than all or most of the other "greeting" patterns. (One might suppose, on general grounds, that the series Mw-BN-Wbl is one of decreasing intensity.)

Much to my surprise, there are 2 pairs of Pezopetes here. I first became aware of this while I was watching one pair hopping about excitedly, in some very open brush, uttering all the "greeting" notes very loudly and very rapidly. I then realized that there was another pair behaving in exactly the same way, also in the open, right across the road, about 15 feet away from the first pair! The "greeting" notes uttered by the 2 pairs at this time were by far the loudest and most intense-sounding I have heard. This would indicate that the "greeting" notes of this species, like the Wbl and associated notes of Yellow-thighs, are really eventually hostile!! 

None of the birds engaged in this dispute uttered any LW's. So the LW's cannot be hostile. They must be pairing and/or sexual patterns.

I think that all 4 birds were uttering some or all of the "greeting" notes during this dispute, but I cannot be sure of this. I also think that they tended  to utter the "greeting" notes in the usual MW-BN-Wbl sequence, but again I cannot be sure about. In any case, it was obvious that some of the birds were uttering so many "greeting" notes so rapidly that they frequently became rather jumbled. One or more of the birds also uttered quite a lot of peculiar intermediate-sounding notes. "Tsee-wee" or "Tsee-weee-eee".

These may well have been intermediate between typical MW's and typical BN's.

One of the birds appeared to become aware of my presence quite suddenly in the middle of the dispute. It immediately uttered 4 or 5 sharp "Tuck" notes. These were quite probably AlCN's. Then, for a minute or so afterwards this bird occasionally inserted one or two "Tuck" Notes apparently at random,