As regular CFZ-watchers will know, for some time Corinna has been doing a column for Animals & Men and a regular segment on On The Track... particularly about out-of-place birds and rare vagrants. There seem to be more and more bird stories from all over the world hitting the news these days so, to make room for them all - and to give them all equal and worthy coverage - she has set up this new blog to cover all things feathery and Fortean.

Monday 23 March 2020

Starlings sleep less during summer and full-moon nights

MARCH 19, 2020


Researchers of the University of Groningen and the Max Planck Institute have found that starlings sleep five hours less per night during the summer. Compared to winter, the birds take more mid-day naps and live under higher sleep pressure. During full-moon nights, starlings sleep around two hours less than usual. The findings of the study were published in the journal Current Biology on 19 March.


Sleep regulation in starlings is highly flexible and sensitive to environmental factors, according to a new pioneering study conducted by researchers of the UG's Groningen Institute for Evolutionary Life Sciences (GELIFES), the Avian Sleep Group at the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology (Germany) and the Institute of Neuroinformatics, University of Zurich (Switzerland).

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