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Call of the Cliff Swallow: a Rare Food Signal in a Colonially Nesting Bird Species ’

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Call of the Cliff Swallow: a Rare Food Signal in a Colonially Nesting Bird Species ’ 714 SHORT COMMUNICATIONS Diomede (SBCM 9089). Both of these birds also have BAILEY,A. M. 1948. Birds of arctic Alaska. Colo. bills too small to be those of A. a. poluris (Table 1). Mus. Nat. Hist., Pop. Ser., No. 8: l-3 17. Alle alle alle is the more widespreadsubspecies, where- CLAMP,S. [ED.]. 1985. Handbook of the birds of Eu- as A. a. polaris is known to breed only at Franz Josef rope, the Middle East, and North Africa, Vol. IV: Land and possibly Sevemaya Zemlya (Vaurie 1965); Terns to woodpeckers.Oxford Univ. Press, New the identity of the subspeciesthat breeds at the latter York. location is not clear, however (Cramp 1985). DIVOKY,G. J. 1984. The pelagicand nearshorebirds of the Alaskan BeaufortSea: biomass and trophies, Day’s work wassupported by NSFgrantsDPP7623340 and 0CE77270500 to the Institute of Marine Sciences, p. 417-437. In P. W. Barnes, D. M. Schell, and E. Reimnitz [eds.],The Alaskan BeaufortSea: Eco- University of Alaska, and by a Resource Fellowship systemsand environments. Academic Press, Or- from the University of Alaska: he thanks C. P. McRoy for the 1980 cruise:DeGange ’s work was supportedby lando, FL. the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National HERSEY,F. S. 1916. A list of birds observedin Alaska Marine FisheriesService. Divoky and Troy’s work was and northeastern Siberia during the summer of supported by the Minerals Management Service, 1914. Smithson. Misc. Coll. 66:-l-33. through an Interagency Agreement with the National HOLMES.R. T. 1968. A Dovekie on the Pribilof Is- Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, as part of lands, Alaska. Condor 70:86. the Outer Continental Shelf AssessmentProgram; Di- KESSEL, B., ANDD. D. GIBSON. 1978. Statusand dis- voky also was supported by a University of Alaska tribution of Alaska birds. Stud. Avian Biol. 1:l- Faculty Small Grant to E. C. Murphy. We thank B. A. 100. Cooper, V. Mendenhall, A. L. Sowls, A. E. Stone, and PORTENKO,L. A. 1973. [Birds of the Chukotsk Pen- the Vertebrate Collections, UAM, for providing un- insula and Wraneel Island. Part 111.Nauka. Len- published data, and D. D. Gibson, S. M. Murphy, ingrad, U.S.S.R.- ’ * ’ M.D.F. Udvardy, and an anonymousreviewer for con- ROBY, D. D., K. L. BRINK, AND D. N. NETTLESHIP. structivecriticism of this manuscript.V. Byre (Chicago 1981. Measurements, chick meals, and breeding Academy of Sciences),R. Cannings(Cowan Vertebrate distribution of Dovekies (Alle alle) in northwest Museum, University. of British Columbia), E. A. Car- Greenland. Arctic 34:241-248. diff (San Bernardino County Museum), and D. F. Par- SEALY,S. G., J. B~DARD,M.D.F. UDVARDY,AND F. H. melee (Bell Museum of Natural History, University of FAY. 1971. New records and zoogeographical Minnesota) loaned specimensfor examination. This is notes on the birds of St. Lawrence Island, Bering nublication number 664 of the Institute of Marine Sci- Sea. Condor 73~322-336. ences, University of Alaska, Fairbanks. SMITH, T. G. 1973. The birds of Holman region, western Victoria Island. Can. Field-Nat. 87:35- 42. LITERATURE CITED STENHOUSE,J. H. 1930. The Little Auk (Al/e alle Polaris Sub-Sp. Nov.) of Franz Josef Land. Scott. AMERICANORNITHOLOGISTS UNION.’ 1983. Check- Nat. 182:47-49. list of North American birds. 6th ed. American VAURIE,C. 1965. The birds of the Palearctic fauna: Ornithologists’ Union, Washington, DC. Non-Passeriformes. Witherby, London. The Condor90:714-715 0 TheCooper Ornithological Society 1988 THE “BUGS” CALL OF THE CLIFF SWALLOW: A RARE FOOD SIGNAL IN A COLONIALLY NESTING BIRD SPECIES ’ PHILIPK. STODDARD Animal BehaviorProgram, Department ofPsychology,University of Washington,Seattle, WA 98195 Key words: Food signals;information center: Clif hypothesis(Ward and Zahavi 1973) which statesthat Swallow; coloniality. birds living in communal roostsmay gain information concerning foraging successand location from suc- I report here the description of a vocalization that ap- cessful returning foragers. While food signals appear pearsto act as a food signalin a colonial passerine,the ubiquitous within the Galliformes where they serve a Cliff Swallow (Hirundopyrrhonota).Food signalshave courtship function and facilitate feeding chicks (e.g., great potential importance to the information center Williamset al. 1968, Stokes 1971, Stokesand Williams 1972,Heinz 1973),among colonially nesting birds there have been no reports of vocalizations that serve the I Received 16 November 1987. Final acceptance15 sole purpose of recruiting colony mates to newly dis- February 1988. covered food patches. SHORT COMMUNICATIONS 715 Colonially nesting swallowsare ideal candidatesfor the morning or evening when aquatic insects were at information center function because they feed on peak emergence.Two occurred on unseasonablycool ephemeral insect swarms which reduces the cost of days, and five occurred on very hot days. Two in the sharing information on foraging location and success, latter group occurred 10 min after a desert thunder- since the swarmswill last only tens of minutes even if storm. Although the bugs call is rarely given it may undisturbed.Brown (1986) has demonstratedthat pas- serve an important function by helping colony mem- sive food information transfer occursfrequently at Cliff bers to feed their nestlingswhen foraging is poor. Swallow colonies. On four occasionsI have been able to point out the While studyingvocal recognition within family groups bugs call and accompanyingbehaviors to other biol- of Cliff Swallows in Washington, I observed the fol- ogists. One year, I obtained a recording of the tseer lowing sequenceon seven occasionsin 4 years: one vocalization but wind distortion made it unsuitablefor adult swallow would fly directly towards the colony. use as a playback stimulus or even for a reasonable At a distance of about 10 m, it would give a loud call sonogram.The followingyear, a colleagueand I camped tseersimilar to the species’ alarm call, but less nasal beside a colony for a month trying to record the tseer in quality, probably due to a lack of the alarm call’s vocalization but we only heard it on two occasions, second voice. The caller would not land and feed its both immediately after thunderstormswhen our tape young but rather would turn and fly straight back in recordershad been taken inside the tent. the direction from which it came, sometimesrepeating To date, there has been no mention of any vocal the call two or three times. Every adult swallow in the signal matching the description of the bugs call in the colony would then leave its nest and fly in the same work on Cliff Swallow vocalizations (Samuel 1971, direction as the caller. Shortly the swallows would en- Brown 1985 and pers. comm.). As I have discovered, counter an insect swarm and feed rapidly. In approx- direct pursuit of the bugscall problem reaps a low rate imately 3 min, the swallowswould return to the colony of return. Researchersworking on small colonies of and feed their nestlings.Often both parents would ar- Cliff Swallows should keep sharp watch for the char- rive simultaneouslyat the nest and one would wait, acteristic mass-foragingexodus following a loud clear clinging to the outside of the nest, while the other de- call. Any recordingsof the tseervocalization would be livered its food. Becauseboth parents could not si- especially valuable for both descriptive and experi- multaneously feed young, the next outward volley of mental work. With enough observationsin well-stud- foragerswas less synchronousthan the first and there ied colonies, we may gradually amass sufficient infor- never appeared to be a third foraging attempt at the mation to understand how the bugs call relates to kin initial site of the insect swarm. What I observed I can benefits, colony size, reciprocity, and other aspectsof only interpret as an individual actively sharing infor- colonial breeding. mation about a productive foraging site, thus I have Thanks to Patti Loeschefor assistancewith field ob- termed the tseervocalization the “bugs” call. servations and independent confirmation of the bugs Close observation of the insect swarm (shoreflies call sequence.Michael Beecher, Charles Brown, John Ephydridae and shore bugs Saldidae) during one for- Hardy, Sara Hiebert, and Michael Lombard0 com- agingbout following a bugscall, revealed that the for- mented on the manuscript.The researchwas supported aging swallows flew straight through the middle of the by NSF grant BNS80-23562 to M. Beecher. insect mass and disrupted the swarm within 5 min, during the secondforaging volley, rather than consum- ing it all. Thus, there appearedto be a cost associated LITERATURE CITED with recruiting the entire 45-pair colony out to the feeding site. This disruption is consistentwith obser- BEHLE, W. H. 1976. Systematic review, intergrada- vations I have made of mixed-speciesgroups of swal- tion, and clinal variation in Cliff Swallows. Auk lows feedingon midges(Chironomidae). There too, the 93~65-77. swallowshave flown through the middle of the swarms BROWN, C. R. 1985. Vocalizations of Barn and Cliff and the insectshave dispersedwithin 3 to 5 min, only swallows. SouthwestNat. 30:325-333. to reswarm in the same location after the swallowsleft BROWN, C. R. 1986. Cliff swallow colonies as infor- to feed on a nearby swarm. mation centers. Science234:83-85. The colonies where I have heard the bugs call and HEINZ. G. H. 1973. Responsesof rim+necked pheas- witnessed the ensuing foraging sequence have been ant chicks(Pha.sianzu~co1chicu.s) to conspecific calls. small, two colonies of 45 and 100 pairs in eastern Behaviour 21:1-9. Washington (H. p. hypopolia) and one colony of five SAMUEL,D. E. 1971. Vocal repertoires of sympatric pairs on the Olympic Peninsula (H. p. pyrrhonota) Barn and Cliff swallows. Auk 88:839-855. (subspeciesnames follow Behle 1976). The bugs call STOKES,A. W. 1971. Parental and courtship feeding and its associatedforaging recruitment behavior was in Red Junale Fowl.
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