Flamingos form firm friendships

Date: April 14, 2020

Source: University of Exeter

Flamingos form friendships that last for years, new research shows.

The five-year study reveals that, despite being highly social as part of large flocks, flamingos consistently spend time with specific close "friends."

They also avoid certain individuals, suggesting some flamingos just don't get on.

The University of Exeter study examined four flamingo species at WWT Slimbridge Wetland Centre, and found social bonds including "married" couples, same-sex friendships and even groups of three and four close friends.

"Our results indicate that flamingo societies are complex. They are formed of long-standing friendships rather than loose, random connections," said Dr Paul Rose, of the University of Exeter.

"Flamingos don't simply find a mate and spend their time with that individual.

"Some mating couples spend much of their time together, but lots of other social bonds also exist.

"We see pairs of males or females choosing to 'hang out', we see trios and quartets that are regularly together.

"Flamingos have long lives -- some of the birds in this study have been at Slimbridge since the 1960s -- and our study shows their friendships are stable over a period of years.

"It seems that -- like humans -- flamingos form social bonds for a variety of reasons, and the fact they're so long-lasting suggests they are important for survival in the wild."

Continued

Early experiences determine how birds build their first nest

Date: May 12, 2020

Source: University of Alberta

Early life experiences of zebra finches have a big effect on the construction of their first homes, according to a new study by researchers at the University of Alberta's Faculty of Science and the University of St Andrews' School of Biology.

The study shows that the presence of an adult bird as well as the types of materials available in early adolescence influence two key aspects of first-time nest building: material preference and construction speed.

"Interestingly, we noted that the preference for different materials, differentiated by colour in our study, is shaped by the juvenile experience of this material -- but only in the presence of an adult," said Lauren Guillette, assistant professor in the Department of Psychology and project lead.

"This work is important because it debunks the long-held myth that birds build nests that look like the nest in which they hatched -- making nest-building a useful model system to experimentally test how animals learn about physical properties of the world."

Continued

How birds evolved big brains

Brain evolution traced from tyrannosaurs to modern crows

Date: April 23, 2020

Source: Bruce Museum 

An international team of evolutionary biologists and paleontologists have reconstructed the evolution of the avian brain using a massive dataset of brain volumes from dinosaurs, extinct birds like Archaeopteryx and the Great Auk, and modern birds.

The study, published online today in the journal Current Biology, reveals that prior to the mass extinction at the end of the Cretaceous Period, birds and non-avian dinosaurs had similar relative brain sizes. After the extinction, the brain-body scaling relationship shifted dramatically as some types of birds underwent an explosive radiation to re-occupy ecological space vacated by extinct groups.

"One of the big surprises was that selection for small body size turns out to be a major factor in the evolution of large-brained birds," says Dr. Daniel Ksepka, Curator of Science at the Bruce Museum and lead author of the study. "Many successful bird families evolved proportionally large brains by shrinking down to smaller body sizes while their brain sizes stayed close to those of their larger-bodied ancestors."

In order to understand how bird brains changed, a team of 37 scientists used CT scan data to create endocasts (models of the brain based on the shape of the skull cavity) of hundreds of birds and dinosaurs, which they combined with a large existing database of brain measurements from modern birds. They then analyzed brain-body allometry: the way brain size scales with body size.

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This New Scientifically Accurate Board Game Is for the Birders ia Mark Raines

“Wingspan” features 170 unique species cards filled with real-world information, life-like illustrations

By Meilan Solly

SMITHSONIANMAG.COM

MARCH 12, 2019

“Wingspan,” an eclectic new board game that transforms players into avian enthusiasts working to attract visitors to competing wildlife preserves, boasts a level of scientific rigor typically unseen in the gaming world.

As Siobhan Roberts reports for The New York Times, creator Elizabeth Hargrave—a self-proclaimed “spreadsheet geek” and avid birder—crafted “Wingspan” with mathematical precision: Drawing on data from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s eBird citizen-science project and All About Birds portal, as well as Audubon’s online guide to North American birds, Hargrave made a massive spreadsheet detailing information such as habitat, wingspan, red-list status and diet. At one point, the document reached a staggering size of 596 rows by nearly 100 columns.

To turn this treasure trove of factoids into a playable gaming experience, Hargrave collaborated with Stonemaier Games. Jamey Stegmaier, co-founder and president of the game publishing company, tells Audubon magazine’s Shaymus McLaughlin that he was instantly intrigued by Hargrave’s description of “Wingspan,” explaining, “There’s something about birds that instantly captures a human desire to collect, sort, and admire.”

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Cranes make comeback in Britain's wetlands

By Roger HarrabinBBC environment analyst

22 April 2020

The graceful crane - the tallest bird in the UK - is making a comeback into Britain’s wetlands thanks to re-introduction and habitat restoration.

It was absent as a breeding bird for 400 years because of wetland drainage and widespread hunting.

Now, an estimated 200 of them are dispersed in Wales, Scotland, the Fens, Suffolk and Gloucestershire.

Their recovery has been glacially slow – in 2019 there’s thought to be just one more breeding pair than 2018.

But the RSPB says population modelling suggests that number will swell much faster soon, as fecundity of the surviving birds improves with age and second generation chicks reach breeding age.

Adult cranes stand at around 1.2m (4ft) and are fabled for their complex “display“ behaviour, where they perform bows, pirouettes and bobs.

Continued

Birds at nature reserve coming out while we stay in

A manager at a nature reserve said staff have noticed birds behaving differently, which they have put down to a lack of visitors to the site during the lockdown period.

Martin Lester said some species which might usually "hide" were being seen more often at the National Trust's Wicken Fen reserve in Cambridgeshire.

"The species that are here... are kind of behaving in a way that we've not seen before, because there are no people on the reserve, so they're in areas we don't normally see them," he said.

"The blackbirds and robins - they're always fairly resistant to human intrusion, but some of the less robust species like the warblers, some of the birds of prey, owls... they tend to hide themselves away, but this year, because there are no people on the trails... the birds are coming much closer to where we are."

He described it as "actually quite wonderful".

Source

Britain's largest bird of prey spotted over Saltburn and Whitby for first time in 240 YEARS

Two of Britain's largest birds of prey seen soaring 'over people's back gardens'; they were last seen in England in 1780 before humans killed them off

Britain's largest bird of prey has been spotted over Saltburn and Whitby - for the first time in 240 years.

Two white-tailed eagles have been seen soaring "over people's back gardens" and across the North York Moors.

The stunning birds, with wing spans of up to two-and-a-half-metres, were last recorded in England in 1780, on the Isle of Wight - but were killed off illegally by humans.

A five-year programme by the Roy Dennis Wildlife Foundation and Forestry England to restore the lost species is under way.

It's hoped the birds will start to breed in the south of England. 

But it's North Yorkshire the young eagles seem to prefer - for now.

"At this stage, young white-tailed eagles are quite nomadic, exploring and learning the landscape," says Dr Tim Mackrill, from the Roy Dennis Wildlife Foundation.

"The GPS transmitters are a brilliant way of tracking them, sometimes as often as every minute.

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