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From: wvenable@spam.ua.oz (Bill Venables)
Newsgroups: rec.birds
Subject: Re: News From Northern Virginia
Message-ID: <347@spam.ua.oz>
Date: 21 Jul 90 01:05:12 GMT
References: <35577@vrdxhq.verdix.com> <62571@oliveb.atc.olivetti.com>
Organization: Statistics, Pure and Applied Maths, University of Adelaide
Lines: 23

In article <62571@oliveb.atc.olivetti.com> mjm@oliven.olivetti.com 
(Michael Mammoser) writes:
|In article <35577@vrdxhq.verdix.com>, edm@vrdxhq.verdix.com 
|(Ed Matthews) writes:
|> From the homefront, the pair of RUBY THROATED HUMMINGBIRDS that frequent my
|> salvia and coral bells were caught in the act of procreation while on the
|> wing over the salvia around my patio.  
|
|You may want to document this incident carefully. If I'm
|not mistaken, the currently accepted ornithological theory is that
|copulating on the wing is unique to the swifts. A well-documented
|case of its occurrence in another family might be of scientific
|interest.

..especially since the swift and hummingbird families are usually
placed in the same order.  You would want to be very sure, though,
that it was indeed copulation and not something else, like aggression.

What do the members of the AOU have to say?

-- 
  Bill Venables, Dept. Statistics,        | Email:   wvenable@spam.ua.oz.au
  Univ. of Adelaide,  South Australia.    | Phone:           +61 8 228 5412