Abstract
Discrimination between neighbours and strangers, on the basis of acoustic cues, has been clearly demonstrated in many temperate avian species, but experiments on neighbour-stranger recognition have received less attention in tropical habitats, particularly in the Indian subcontinent. With this in mind, neighbour-stranger discrimination experiments were conducted on tropical male Pied Bushchats Saxicola caprata in the District Haridwar, of the Himalayan foothills, India. The sound levels of broadcasted songs were kept as close as possible to natural song levels. The results of the parameters analysed (including song rate, song repertoire, flights toward the speaker, distance from the speaker, and latency) did not differ significantly between neighbour and stranger song playbacks. It seems that male Pied Bushchats responded evenly toward the playback and may be incapable of discriminating between neighbours and strangers.
