Category Archives: Birds
TECHNOLOGY AND SCIENCE – 2
October 2007 Crow tool use, as you’ve never seen it before! Videos from Oxford group who strapped miniature cameras onto crows in New Caledonia and watched how they made tools out of bits of twig, and what they used them for. There’s … Continue reading
THE FLIGHT OF THE GODWIT
September 2007 The bar-tailed Godwit flies from Alaska to New Zealand, and back again. One female took just 8 days to fly the 11,500 km, which meant she was flying at around 60 kph…
TWO MORE PODCASTS
September 2007 Science podcast on ape/human cognition, feathered dinosaurs, saving tigers. Science podcast on cooperative breeding and the mystery of the Ivory-Billed woodpecker – is it extinct?
Filed under Audio files, Behaviour, Birds, Conservation, Dinosaurs, Primates
FROM GAY PENGUINS TO GAY FLAMINGOS
May 2007 Some of you may remember the Gay Penguin business in Berlin Zoo a while back. This is a piece about a pair of male flamingos who have adopted an egg. Ahhh. Anybody seriously interested in the wide variety of sexual behaviour … Continue reading
Filed under Baby animals, Birds, Books
SEXUAL SELECTION OR NATURAL SELECTION?
May 2007 For a long time, the “streamers” on the tails of male swallows have been thought to be primarily under sexual selection. This article from Current Biology suggests that a lot of inter-individual variation is in fact due to natural selection operating … Continue reading
JEALOUS OSPREY
May 2007 BBC video explaining the behaviour of a Scottish Osprey, which has dumped the eggs out its partner’s nest because he wasn’t the father… (may not work outside UK).
ARE CUCKOOS CUCKOO?
May 2007 Excellent “Primer” article from Current Biology about cuckoo behaviour. Are all cuckoos obligatory brood parasites? Why isn’t everyone a brood parasite? Find out more in simple bite-size chunks…
Filed under Birds, Quick Guides
TRACKING WALRUSES AND GODWITS
May 2007 Tracking animals might seem a cinch in the age of GPS. But it doesn’t always turn out that way – the BBC website’s “Walrus Watch” has come seriously unstuck, with only one of the eight tags still working… A more traditional … Continue reading
SPARROWHAWKS IN STOPFORD
May 2007 A pair of sparrowhawks are nesting in the rear quad of the Stopford Building. The nest is at the top of the smaller of the silver birch trees. To prevent the pair being disturbed, Andrew Loudon has had the rear … Continue reading
Filed under Birds, Manchester
BAD NEWS FROM MALTA
May 2007 Somewhat distressing piece about the annual blast-em-up fest for hunters on Malta, who seem to take great delight in firing away at anything in the sky.
Filed under Birds, Ecology (political)
