Africa Wild

Lisbeth wrote: ↑Thu Nov 05, 2020 4:14 pm Sorry! I have nothing exotic, only same as yours but from Kirstenbosch Gardens

The study flock was not a number of Helmeted Guineafowl that associated randomly. The members remained around the dominant male and followed him as he initiated foraging. Although a pecking order could be established among males, the frequency of agonistic actions was very low, which suggests that agonistic interactions are limited to ensure cohesion. The function of the pecking order was not to dispel adult members from the flock but simply to maintain a rank hierarchy. The second highest ranking male took center stage with the rest of the flock associated around him in order to maintain the cohesive nature of the flock when the dominant male and his female left to breed. This alternate responsibility was important to prevent eviction from the territory or a take-over from neighboring dominant males. The two high ranking males foraged away from the females during the non-breeding season, but still in the same flock, in order to repel conspecific intruders, but during the breeding season they spent more time with their females (Table 3). In other words, it was a monogamous mating system.
No polygamy or promiscuity was recorded; that is, the two high ranking males did not flirt with each other’s females or flirt with females that joined from neighboring flocks. Prolonged squabbles for adult females could lead to flock instability. There was no evidence of sequential mate selection.
On arrival of parents and chicks, the highest ranking male spent more time with his chicks than the mother, who spent relatively little time with her
chicks (Table 4). This is ascribed to the females foraging actively to restore bodily condition after breeding (Crowe and Elbin, 1987). During this time, the adult non-breeding male and female spent more time with the chicks of the dominant male than their own mother did (Table 4). Since the history of the flock was not known, these helpers could be offspring from a previous year since they were at least two years old when observations started. In the Constantia study, it was demonstrated that offspring from a previous year helped their mother with incubation.
The small social spread during the brooding stage illustrates that most members form a close-knit unit to protect the chicks. It could be argued that formation of a cluster is a response to an urge to associate closely when predators close in, because chicks are easy prey (Fig. 1). However, the fact that all adults 1) helped to distract predators, 2) emitted soft “swe swe swe” contact calls and 3) associated closely with the chicks, illustrates that co-operative nurturing indeed took place.