PASSING WARNINGS ALONG. Christopher Solomon describes other research into communications between species: When a red squirrel sees a dangerous raptor it will give a call that is acoustically “almost identical” to a bird call. The red squirrel will also pass on an announcement of a dangerous raptor by a bird or other animal. Announcements can be passed on over great distances by birds and animals at a speed which can reach 100 miles an hour.
And Solomon reports on a current area of study: If a warning given by a chickadee indicates the size of the predator and the danger of the threat to a small bird, do larger species of birds, such as robins and crows, react to warnings by chickadees of large predators that are of little importance to chickadees?