I received an email from one of my readers regarding the Flock leader ( Leader of the colony) below is his question.
Hello James,
Congratulations on your blog. I find the articles on DIY very interesting. The caption in one of your pictures says that if the flock leader transfers to a site, the rest follow. My question is - is there any way to identify the flock leader?
Sincerely,
Dick Morales
Manila, Philippines
In a bird house or shall I call it farm has more than one colony. As we observed sometime when the birds returning to the farm in the late afternoon after the whole day searching for food, we see that some circling above the farm while other entering the farm, they might be from the different colonies. Sometimes we see batches of bird depending how many birds you have in your farm, circling a while and the whole group entering the farm later another batch out of nowhere appeared and did the same thing this clearly shown that the farm has more than one colony. Swiftlets fly in colony while searching for food, some colonies venture far from farm and some near. Therefore colonies that search food nearer to the farm will reach the farm first and colonies that venture far will reach the farm late, from here you would see batches entering the farm in different time.
In a colony there is always a leader. If you have a farm that has few hundred of birds identification is easy as compared to farm that has less than a hundred of birds. The leader of the colony is very vocal, noisy and indeed aggressive . These are the characteristics of the leader as to protect the whole colony from danger. Thru my observation the one that always be the 1st to respond to any aggression, sound,etc is the leader. If you observed closely in the farm long enough till mid night not all birds make significant chirping sound in the farm, only few would continuously making noise or circling around .Those that continuously doing it or those frequently doing it are the leaders.
That is why when you listen to bird Cd sound you will discover a dominant sound ( like a lead singer, solo) and the rest are back-up sound ( colony). This is the leader.