Birds Learn “Password’ to Sing For Their Supper
By SINDYA N. BHANOO Some species of cuckoo are known as brood parasites for their devious tactic of laying their eggs in other species’ nests so those birds can care for the cuckoos’ young. Now scientists have discovered that an Australian bird called the fairywren has evolved a way around this tactic: The mothers teach
Music To A Bird’s Ears
A bird listening to birdsong may experience some of the same emotions as a human listening to music, suggests a new study on white-throated sparrows, published in Frontiers of Evolutionary Neuroscience. “We found that the same neural reward system is activated in female birds in the breeding state that are listening to male birdsong,
The Feisty Laughing Gull
Found spaced across the rocky peaks of Eastern Egg Rock, laughing gulls are a very vocal species whose call is a loud, descending series of laughing notes lasting 3 seconds or more. They also make a short stuttered alarm call when people, predators, or other gulls approach too closely. This can accelerate and intensify into
Let’s Do The Numbers…
The Blackpoll Warbler, on its 3,500 mile migration, will have flapped its wings about three million times. If burning standard motorcar fuel, its fuel economy would be 720,000 miles per US gallon. Let’s reframe this: The average American drives 12,000 miles every year, and their driveable years is about age 55. This means the average
