Black bellied plover attacking Sanderling sandpiper | Bully / Retaliatory | Bird Behavior

Black bellied plover attacking Sanderling sandpiper | Bully / Retaliatory / Revenge | Bird Behavior | Noise, Sound, Call, Audio | Fighting, War | habits, facts | running, eating crab | 4k video | Animal, Wildlife, Nature | #gotrails, #birds, #birding, #birdbullying, #sandpiper, #plover

[Details]

In this video, a rare instance of bird bully / retaliatory behavior was recorded.

This happened as filming a mixed flock of dunlins and sanderlings feeding at shore. One black-bellied plover attacked multiple times on individual sanderlings (not sure if it was the same one), through spinning them as in hammer throw.

There are some plausible explanations for such bully behavior in birds. First, birds can bully others to protect food sources. But here the black-bellied plover only targeted individual sanderlings and did not attack those dunlins at all. Second, birds can retaliate against other birds in some circumstances. For example, brood parasite birds like cowbirds and cuckoos might retaliate host birds by destroying the entire nest if their eggs were rejected.

As the black-bellied plover was eating a small crab, it was knocked by a landing sanderling. This might be the reason that the black-bellied plover showed the rare bully / retaliatory behavior.

* All video / audio contents were filmed / recorded and edited by GoTrails.

Видео Black bellied plover attacking Sanderling sandpiper | Bully / Retaliatory | Bird Behavior канала GoTrails