Dunnock Shenanigans

I have been studying 2 Dunnocks in my garden during this breeding season although outside the breeding time they appear singly.

Last year they had a chick and for the life of me I cannot find the photo to show you.  However yesterday I saw something that I thought I would never see.  Unfortunately, even though I had my camera in hand, it all happened under my garden table and chairs and I could not get a decent video of the ‘happening’.  So instead I thought today I would tell you all I know about Dunnocks and hope others can add to my knowledge.

DUNNOCK  Prunella modularis

 Their plumage is rather sparrow-like but its old name of Hedge Sparrow was misleading.   Its slim build and especially its fine pointed bill prove that this isn't a sparrow at all.  Key identification features include rich brown upper parts, neatly streaked with black, bright orange or pinkish legs and, above all, the lead grey colouring of the head and breast and is 15cm or 5.3/4” in length.

Its call is short and thin but shrill and piercing.  Its song is a brief, high pitched, rather monotonous warble, a welcome, cheery sound in early spring.   This it does a lot from my Fir tree particularly when looking for a mate.

Females are slightly less colourful than males, particularly in the spring but I cannot tell the difference!

Now we get to the juicy bit.  It has a remarkably varied and flexible mating system.  Sometimes a territory supports just two birds, male and female which co-operate in rearing the young.  However, a male with a good quality territory will sometimes attract and mate with two or even three females. More typically though, it is the female who tries to mate with more than one male since any male she has mated with then helps in the feeding of the young.  If two males have mated with the same female they may merge their territories and co-operate in defending a 'super-territory'.  If lots of 'extra-marital' copulations take place you can have territories in which each female has more than one male but the males have mated with more than one female and are therefore attending two broods simultaneously.   Are you still with me?

 In a system with so much 'infidelity' the males have to be careful that they don't end up feeding a brood which is entirely someone else's offspring.

This explains why, before mating, the male will peck at the cloaca of the female stimulating a pumping action.  If the female has recently mated with another male this pumping will push out the bag of sperms which have just been deposited. 

This is what I saw the male clearly doing in my garden yesterday and indeed he made several goes at this, making very sure it was only his sperm that was being used!!  They probably copulate many times.

They then build a nest of hair- and feather-lined nest of twigs, moss and leaves deep in dense bushes and hedges and lay  4-5, bright blue eggs.   Incubation takes 12-13 days. The young fledge after 12 days and they can have 3 broods per year.  So I am hoping that that what I witnessed yesterday will end up with Dunnock chicks in my garden!

Over the past few days I have tried to take some video of their activity in the garden so sit back and watch these very flighty birds in action accessed at -

http://youtu.be/FQLCob5wMRw

I hope you enjoyed the video about the Dunnock and I hope you will visit soon again.

A big thank you to all those people who left comments yesterday on any of my posts.  I think everyone who responded regarding animals having'feelings', all agreed that they did.

This post is linked to Wild Bird Wednesday WBW