RE: Screech Owls And Blind Snakes Have Bizarre But Beneficial Relationship
Interesting read, as usual. The base of predatory birds nests are absolutely crawling with insects, that mainly feed on the leftovers of the animals that such birds bring into the nest to feed the young. I have seen this in a bald eagle nest in particular, but I assume its not much different with other species.
Especially in the dark these insects (similar looking to earwigs, but they are not earwigs) come out and crawl around, disturbing the eaglets in their sleep.
On another occassion, I have seen that a sparrow (or a similar finch like bird) had build its nest inside the pile of branches which a osprey build its nest from. The sparrow was continously flying in and out at the edge of the nest, while the osprey, barely 2 feet away, totally ignored him. The osprey could have easily grabbed the sparrow and feed it to its own young, but it didn't.
I was wondering if thats a form of symbiosis then. The sparrow gets additional insects from the osprey nest, plus some protection because the osprey wont tolerate any nest robbers (rats, snakes or whatever) come close to the nest. And the osprey gets rid of some insect infestation of the nest.
I would totally count that as some form of symbiosis, probably even mutualism to an extent. The sparrow benefits from food and shelter and the osprey certainly isn't harmed in the process. The osprey may not attack the bird more because they rarely stray from their fish diet unless absolutely necessary, so it may just be ignoring the sparrow because it's not part of its "regular" diet. But since the osprey benefits from the sparrow picking out parasites and pests, I think it's safe to call that a mutualistic relationship.
Well, its difficult to say why the osprey ignored the sparrow. Normally they are not fond of anyone coming close to the nest. And there is nothing wrong with a free meal either, even if they are usually fish eaters.
Again the comparison with the bald eagles gives good example: about 95% of their prey was fish too, but a few times they also brought a opossum, once or twice a bird (I assume a egret, but its hard to say since they were pretty messed up) and once a rabbit.
And there were also occassionally smaller birds landing in the nest tree, but they kept a safe distance to the eagles, and the eagles always kept an eye on them.
I find it fascinating that we now can learn more about the interactions between different species, thanks to the camera technology we have now. This way we can learn details of the behaviour, that was not known before since a human observer always disturbed the behaviour of the animals.
Things like what insects live underneath the eagle nest and what they do during the night.
And the best thing is, that everybody can participate in the observations, via the internet.