Animals Library: bird

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Birds HD Wallpapers

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Talk is cheep: Do caged birds sing a key to language?

WHEN you watch Kazuo Okanoya on stage, bobbing up and down, chirping, you know he is passionate about his work. His lab at the University of Tokyo is alive with the sound of the birds that inspire his performance – row upon row of cages full of Bengalese finches. You can see why he is so taken by them. They are beautiful and good-natured, and they sing like a dream.

Okanoya was brought up in rural Japan surrounded by farm animals as well as his own menagerie of pet hamsters, turtles, hermit crabs, chipmunks and finches. "As a child, I loved animals more than humans," he says. That he ended up studying birds is hardly surprising. But what he has discovered certainly is. He set out to explore how singing cements the intense bond between pairs of Bengalese finches and underpins their devoted parenting. Instead, his experiments might have implications for one of evolution's most enduring mysteries: the emergence of human language.

Source: Here

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Birds of a Feather Counted Together at VINS

Quechee — Birds and humans alike last week took a keen interest in the suet and seed-filled feeders on the woodsy grounds of Vermont Institute of Natural Science. The people had a mission: record as many species as possible for the Great Backyard Bird Count. The birds? They were just plain hungry.

Started by Cornell Lab of Ornithology and the National Audubon Society, the annual four-day event helps scientists study bird populations across the globe.

Source: Here

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58-Million-Year-Old Flying Seabird Discovered in New Zealand

An international group of paleontologists reported the discovery of a fossil seabird species that lived in what is modern New Zealand during the early Paleocene, around 58 million years ago. The bird, named Australornis lovei, is one of the world’s oldest species of flying seabirds.

The fossil bones of Australornis lovei were collected from the Waipara greensand deposits of North Canterbury, New Zealand’s South Island.

Source: Here

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Bird Data Confirms That V’s Help Save Energy

Birds of a feather may flock together, but why they fly together in V formations has never been known for certain.

Now, with the help of 14 northern bald ibises fitted with lightweight sensors on a 600-mile migration from Austria to Tuscany, researchers are suggesting that the explanation is one that was long suspected but never proved: The formation helps the birds conserve energy. \

Source: Here

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Wanted: Sam the Seagull

WANTED

Sam the seagull from Aberdeen Scotland is wanted for shoplifting. If you see this gull, better close your windows and hide your cheesy chips.

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Pigeon Envy

Imagine you are plucked out of your New York City apartment rooftop by a giant hand in the heavens and placed in a dark box. Suddenly the box opens 1,200 miles away on a random side street in Omaha Nebraska. Now walk home. And do it fast. Don’t think that’s possible? I got some city pigeon friends that can serve it up….. right in yo’ FREAKIN’ FACE!

You can take the bird out of the city but you can’t take the city out of the bird. Seriously. They will find their way back. Pigeons are an incredibly underrated little critter often referred to as “flying rats” or “gutter birds ” while possessing uncanny navigational abilities and have been absolutely critical to early social networking and information delivery services for humans. These birds placed in unfamiliar environments up to 1,200 miles away can reliably find their way to their home nest, and quite romantically, to their mate. Dating back 3000 years the ancient Egyptians, Persians and Romans all used pigeons to deliver information. They have delivered sensitive documentation during war time, were integral in forming the first air-mail service (stamps included) and informed Noah that he could climb out of that zoo of an ark he had been cooped up in for over a year. These birds were charged with proclaiming the winner of the early Olympic games, declaring stock prices between Brussels and Aachen for a young Mr. Reuter and helping to save people stranded at sea. Unfortunately for these loyal hard working birds, something called “the interweb” took their last paying job and put them out of business in 2002.

Source: Here

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What's Causing Early Bird Migrations? Global Warming A ‘Key Part’ of Understanding Population Declines

Scientists have previously documented how bird migrations around the world are happening earlier every year. Recently, researchers from the University of East Anglia’s Schools of Biological Sciences in the U.K. fingered climate change as the culprit for early godwit migrations in Europe.

“We have known that birds are migrating earlier and earlier each year – particularly those that migrate over shorter distances,” Jenny Gill, a biologist from the University of East Anglia and one of the authors of a bird migration study, said in a statement, according to Red Orbit. “But the reason why has puzzled bird experts for years. It’s a particularly important question because the species that are not migrating earlier are declining in numbers.”

Source: Here

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Human Life Expectancy Is To Blame For Rise In Number Of Endangered Species

The number of animal or bird species coming under the endangered category is becoming a common affair now. Adding to the woes, a new study suggests, the number of invasive and endangered birds and mammals increases with the improvement in human life expectancy.

According to researchers at the University of California, human life expectancy is the greatest predictor of global invasions and extinctions.

Source: Here

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Conservationists deploy net-flinging cannons, GPS devices to aid restoration of endangered bird

To save one critically endangered bird population, a group of researchers are bringing in the big guns—literally. The researchers deployed a trio of cannons into areas of Cape Cod, Massachusetts, where populations of the red knot, a robin-sized bird species, are roosting and fire nets from the cannons to trap the birds in order to collect feather samples and outfit the birds with geo-locator devices. By tracking the birds via the devices, the researchers hope to gather clues that might help them save this bird species from what some ornithologists say is a very likely extinction.

According to the research team, which included about a dozen participants, the red knot is one of a large number of shorebirds that are in trouble—70% of shorebird species are in decline, according to Lawrence Niles, a participant and the chief biologist at the Conserve Wildlife Foundation. The red knot’s problem is especially acute, though, in that some of its populations have withered by 75% since the 1980s.

Source: Here

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Amazonian Royal Flycatcher

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The Shoebill

Talk about conspicuous birds, the Shoebill is one heck of a bird with a strikingly huge, straw colored spherical bill with erratic grayish markings that can best live up to its name. Aside from the eye-catching bill, its height is distinctive among birds, that reaches up to about 5 feet, approximately 55 -60 inches and its massive weight as far as birds are concerned ranging from 8.8 to 15 pounds and a wide wingspan of 91 to 100 inches. Its feet are remarkably large with the middle toe protruding, reaching to about 6.6-7.3 inches in length making them capable to hunt on water while standing without getting wet.

A little closer to the pelicans but has characteristics that are much closer to storks and herons, shoebills love to hunt for prey in swamps, marshes and in floating vegetation areas, usually standing motionless while eyeing for the kill. This is one significant characteristic that not all known birds have – the ability to hunt by pretending to be immobile that is not a threat at all as compared to other predators. They usually stalk their prey slowly but surely and work at it solitarily in a lingering yet lurking fashion.

Most Shoebills are known to move very slowly and has the propensity to stay in one position for a long period of time, keeping still to the point of looking like a statue. This is the main reason why most notable descriptions of the Shoebill will always have the “statue-like” description as part of it.

Still and fixed, shoebills successfully forage and thrive at a minimum distance of 20 meters or 66 feet using solely their vision as compared to other predators that use the tactile hunting method. The Shoebill is one special kind of bird species that is considered to be part of the list of desirable birds in America.

The Shoebill Video

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Parrots

Parrots and the realities of urban life were the focus of the 2003 feature The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill, a movie which told the tale of how a frustrated homeless musician managed to forge solid relationships with a number of wild parrots.

Based on a true story, the movie tells an inspiring story, one which touches up on how important companionship and reaching out can be, as well as delves into the particulars and peculiarities known to revolve around parrots.

The Avian Welfare Resource Center, a part of the Avian Welfare Coalition, has long asserted that parrots are not domestic animals, not like how cats or dogs are as domestic animals.

Though found in countless homes in different parts of the world, not all parrots are the same with others, with some not even capable of “talking”. Screeching or screaming, however, is something every parrot can do. Also, not all parrots are trainable, with most trained parrots owing their training aptitudes to the skills of trainers and experts.

However, parrots are naturally curious and active, which contributes to their attributed flair as sociable birds.

Many have taken in parrots as pets in the hopes of having an exotic pet that says funny things and does amusing tricks. As many expect these to come from parrots, many have also ended up being frustrated when “parrot realities” come up, with their pets being difficult to manage, biting, screeching and generally making a mess.

As such, it has to be said that parrots, as they were featured in The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill, remain to be wild animals which thrive in their independence as creatures of Mother Earth.

Serious thought is then in order if you’re mulling about keeping parrots as pets.

Parrot Pictures