What determines the speed at which birds fly?
...ss and wing loading, whereas the average speed for songbirds and shorebirds was faster than would be predicted. This study suggests that there are different functional adaptations affecting flight differently among different types of bird, and that there exists a diversity of cruising flight characteristics ...Chickens also orient themselves by the Earth's magnetic field
...species of birds, the majority of them being those songbirds that undertake annual migration. An international working group under the direction of Wolfgang und Roswitha Wiltschko of Frankfurt University has now succeeded in demonstrating the presence of a magnetic sense of direction in domestic chickens as we...Eavesdropping comes naturally to young song sparrows
...ology professor. Scientists study song learning in songbirds in part because it has a number of parallels with human language learning, and Beecher thinks eavesdropping also could play a role in how infants learn language. Sparrows in the wild are thought to learn their songs in two phases. The first phase o...Eavesdropping nuthatches distinguish danger threats in chickadee alarm calls
...tors such as the pygmy owl which can prey on small songbirds present a greater danger to the chickadees than does the great horned owl, a larger, less maneuverable raptor. Chickadees and nuthatches are similar in size, occupy many of the same habitats, exist in mix-species flocks during the winter and are att...Bats prey on nocturnally migrating songbirds
...presented by the billions of high-flying, Eurasian songbirds which engage twice a year into long-distance, nort... world. Are some of them similarly stalking unwary songbirds during their massive nocturnal passes? The foraging habits of these rare bats still remain quite mys...Cities change the songs of birds
...onmental pressures that influence where particular songbirds thrive, and the specific attributes of city birds that allow them to adjust to noisy urban environments. The findings, reported by Hans Slabbekoorn and Ardie den Boer-Visser of Leiden University, appear in the December 5th issue of Current Biology. ...Light guides flight of migratory birds
...light. Muheim and Phillips argue that migratory songbirds average the sunrise and sunset intersections of th...search suggested that before the migration period, songbirds are able to recalibrate the magnetic compass when exposed to a "conflict" between magnetic and celes...Female birds boost up their eggs when hearing sexy song
...est issue of Ethology researchers show that female songbirds can alter the size of eggs and possibly the sex of their chicks according to how they perceive their mate's quality. The researchers played back attractive ("sexy") songs and less attractive control songs of male canaries to female domesticated cana...Dragonfly migration resembles that of birds, scientists say
...ists have discovered that migrating dragonfliesand songbirds exhibit many of the same behaviors, suggesting the rulesthat govern such long-distance travel may be simpler and more ancientthan was once thought. The research, published in the May 11 Biology Letters, is based on datagenerated by tracking 14 green ...Hormones may affect how brain listens, Emory study finds
...signals. A new Emory University study conducted in songbirds suggests that hormones may also modulate the way t...ar when it's time to reproduce. Like many animals, songbirds put on their reproductive song and dance routine each spring: Male birds perform their finest songs,...'Uniquely human' component of language found in gregarious birds
... show that these starlings long known as virtuoso songbirds and expert mimics can be trained to reliably discriminate between two different patterns of organizing the sounds they use to communicate. "Our research is a refutation of the canonical position that what makes human language unique is a singular a......here they are unlikely to survive. Night-migrating songbirds may fly into brightly lit buildings and radio towers, leading to deaths sometimes numbering in the tens of thousands. Challenges of this sort make cities an ideal laboratory for evolutionary biologists to watch adaptation happening before their eyes....Males with elevated levels of testosterone lead shorter lives but have more success siring offspring
...llowed a group of dark-eyed juncos, small mountain songbirds found throughout North America. They injected males with elevated levels of testosterone and found that they had shorter lives but that they were very successful at siring more offspring even with females who were mated with other males. "The surpr...Birdsong sounds sweeter because throats filter out messy overtones
...f the National Academy of Sciences. "We show that songbirds adjust the size and shape of their vocal tract to 'fit' the changing frequency of their song," IU neurobiologist Roderick Suthers said. "This enables the bird to produce a more whistle-like, pure-tone song." The finding supports a growing consensus ...Zebra finches remember songs dad sang
...lieve they have located a place in the brain where songbirds store the memories of their parents' songs. The di...ry has implications for humans, because humans and songbirds are among the few animals that learn to vocalize by imitating their caregivers. In a paper published...K-State professor studies how landscape dynamics affect extinction risk for migratory songbirds
...at loss increases the extinction risk of migratory songbirds may provide some insight about how other animals m...ate extinction risk for several types of migratory songbirds that breed in the temperate forests and grasslands of the United States. After breeding there, the b...Migratory songbirds have a specialized night-vision brain area
...esearchers compared two species of night-migratory songbirds -- garden warblers and European robins -- with two non-migratory songbirds -- zebra finches and canaries. Using a transparent cylindrical cage in Mouritsen's laboratory, they ...One gene links newborn neurons with those that die in diseases such as Alzheimer's
...ed the study of the brain pathways controlling how songbirds learn to sing. A discrete region of the brains of songbirds, known as the high vocal center, controls their singing behavior. It was in this brain region that, more than 20 years ago, Nottebohm discovered new neurons being born in adult birds, overtu...For young canaries learning their song, freedom in youth gives way to rules in adulthood
...ion of well-known mimics, such as the mockingbird, songbirds in nature rarely imitate the song of other species; they only imitate older birds of their own kind. The researchers wondered whether this preference results from innate knowledge about what the adult song should sound like, and if so, how that innat......iding Predators Differences in color vision allow songbirds to be less obvious to predators yet maintain their...easured UV reflections from the plumage of Swedish songbirds within their natural habitats. Using mathematical models, the authors calculated how songbird plumag...