MetaFilter posts tagged with birds and science

"Everyone loves owls. Even mammalogists love owls."

medusa — Thu, 28 Feb 2013 08:26:28 -0800

Why are owls so wise? Perhaps it's because they're utter badasses.

Ferocity is essential for a bird whose frigid, spotty range extends across northeastern China, the Russian Far East and up toward the Arctic Circle, one that breeds and nests in the dead of winter, perched atop a giant cottonwood or elm tree, out in the open, in temperatures 30 degrees below zero Fahrenheit. Dr. Slaght’s colleague Sergei Surmach videotaped a female sitting on her nest during a blizzard. “All you could see at the end was her tail jutting out,” Dr. Slaght said.

The New York Times Science section gives an update on some current owl research. Trigger warning: overwrought prose. But research highlights include using owls as inspiration for designing quieter flying vehicles, an estimate that a parliament of owls can eat 25,000 rats in a year, and some information on owls' amazing hearing.

“One swallow does not make a summer, but one skein of geese, cleaving the murk of a March thaw, is the spring.”

ChuraChura — Tue, 25 Sep 2012 07:55:11 -0800

The great naturalist Aldo Leopold took detailed notes in his journals every morning before sunrise, logging the birds he heard calling on his farm in rural Wisconsin. Now, using journals from the Aldo Leopold archives, and bird calls from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, researchers at UW-Madison have replicated what Aldo Leopold would have heard one morning on his farm in the 1940s autoplays bird calls.

Sex crazed, but not too picky

Brandon Blatcher — Mon, 17 Sep 2012 13:33:00 -0800

Nature constantly engineers new and creative solutions to all sorts of problems—turning our stereotypes about sex upside-down along the way.

Bird Brains

The Whelk — Sun, 26 Aug 2012 15:21:27 -0800

Staying_On-Topic in r/intelligentanimals posts a huge number of links explaining why Corvids (crows, ravens, magpies, etc) are amazing.

If you were an Eskimo Curlew (and boy, do we wish you were)...

mediareport — Sun, 26 Jun 2011 07:27:25 -0800

What is Bird Poop? What Do Nesting Birds Do With All That Poop? Poop From The Front End. The Poop Wars of 1879. Poop Week has just concluded at 10,000 Birds, with stories, dirty science and beautiful photos at "the intersection of poop and birding, a fertile precinct if there ever was one." [via The Agonist] My Loo List: Over the years to come I would see so many good birds whilst having a wee pee in bushes or even an alfresco numero due that it has almost become normal. In Kent I found my first Dartford Warbler whilst taking a dump behind a gorse bush. In the Spanish Pyrenees I saw my first Alpine Chough while making yellow snow. In Chile I got the best view of an Andean Condor of the entire trip while having a cheeky poo under a monkey puzzle pine on the side of a volcano...

Murmur

OmieWise — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 09:59:01 -0800

Murmur. Photographs of flocking birds by Richard Barnes.
Boids. A program by Craig Reynolds modeling emergent behavior.
Swarm. A platform and wiki for agent-based modelers.

What Color Is My Pawpawsaurus?

Bora Horza Gobuchul — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 17:48:09 -0800

Dinosaur coloration has always been a source of wild speculation. Artistic renders have ranged from the conservative (battleship grey, lizard green) to the flamboyant, but all guesses appeared equally valid. While there are some wonderfully preserved examples of dinosaur skin texture, fossils have remained stubbornly monochromatic… until now. Scientists at Yale have hit upon a line of inquiry that may solve the puzzle [article with embedded YouTube video]. As ancient ancestors to birds, some dinosaurs were feathered: velociraptor, for example, is now known to have been fully plumaged, and many other dinosaurs were patterned with "dinofuzz". Feathers contain melanin; different sizes and shapes of fossilised melanosomes, revealed under electron microscopes, indicate different colors. So far scientists working in the field have been able to detect red, black, and brown in fossil feathers, with more colors almost certainly on the way.
(The title for this post was aided by the excellent DinoDictionary; references from the DinoWiki and the University of Bristol's DinoBase also contributed.)

The Crow Paradox

Artw — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 22:24:56 -0800

Crows can tell people apart. Can you tell crows apart?

"Big Bird says it's time to wake up..."

saulgoodman — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 12:24:15 -0800

A new round of genetic tests has confirmed it: The 'big lizards' of our childhood fantasies were more likely 'big birds.' In fact, they probably even had feathers, and looked more like this than this. Mind blowing, I know, but I guess this demonstrates that, despite what some may think, science really doesn't have a problem admitting that it got something wrong when new evidence comes to light.

Nature gone Wild

ewkpates — Thu, 28 Dec 2006 10:06:40 -0800

Birds that rap and cows with accents. The big picture is urban adaptation, which is pretty cool. (...and the egg wins.)

Bird brains?

Pink Fuzzy Bunny — Thu, 13 Apr 2006 16:49:09 -0800

Searchable Ornithological Research Archive a site containing back issues of avian journals dating back to 1884. Some highlights: The landing forces of domestic pigeons, [pdf] an 1889 comparison of bird brains [pdf]

Bright Birds That Eternally Flu

salvia — Sun, 09 Apr 2006 13:46:21 -0800

Bird flu update: "At this moment, birds that travel flyways in Asia, where most bird flu cases have been found, are mingling with birds that fly through North America." Officials in Kansas and Ohio warn it will arrive this fall, as those birds fly south for the winter on North American migration pathways. The Onion jokingly predicts the government's response.

Indonesia - new species discovered

Protocols of the Elders of Awesome — Tue, 07 Feb 2006 05:16:20 -0800

"Lost World" found in Indonesian Papua (with audio)

Digitized Central American Biological History

peacay — Mon, 26 Sep 2005 11:54:27 -0800

Electronic Biologia Centrali-Americana is a collaboration between the Smithsonian, Missouri Botanical and Kew Gardens, the British Natural History Museum and various other institutions which has enabled the digitizing of 58 volumes of natural history about central America produced between 1880 and 1920. It includes descriptions of more than 50,000 species with images of more than 18,000 birds, more birds, snakes, turtles, centipedes, spiders, more spiders, plants, mollusks, more plants, butterflies, orthoptera insects, more butterflies and their family's (moth-like) families, mammals and even some historic maps of the region. There is a parallel project attempting to provide access to much more scientific data and specimens between these institutions. Note: 'next' button at top +/- bottom of these large thumb pages; large high resolution jpegs work (in most cases) but zoom and .pdfiles are not yet enabled. I've only just scratched the surface.

The Dance of the Manakin

monju_bosatsu — Fri, 29 Apr 2005 16:38:25 -0800

Manakins (Manacus sp.) are small, colorful sparrow-sized birds found all over Central and South America. Manakin males engage in elaborate courtship dances, including rhythmic sounds they produce with their wings. No one really knew how the birds made this sounds, until Kimberly Bostwick, Curator of Birds and Mammals at the Cornell University Museum of Vertebrates, went into the jungles of Ecuador to film the birds at 1000 frames per second. As it turns out, different species of manakin use entirely different motion to produce the sounds. The Journal of Experimental Biology has published the results, complete with videos. Mark Barres, who studies avian genetic population structures at the Univ. of Wisconsin, has also filmed the mating dance of the Manakins [.mov].

Seabirds skull gallery

mediareport — Sat, 19 Feb 2005 21:14:22 -0800

Seabirds Skull Gallery An amateur birder in Holland is fascinated by the internal structure of various seabirds. [via Incoming Signals]

They grin at me from the trees

troutfishing — Wed, 04 Jun 2003 10:42:09 -0800

First Birds with teeth in 70 million years . Vicious toothed, flying microraptors once darkened the Jurassic skies. Now, scientists have learned to activate the dormant, vestigal avian "tooth gene" and so coaxed chicken embryos into growing teeth. From the grave, Alfred Hitchcock enviously quips - "a messy thing indeed when toothed birds kill a man". Meanwhile the French are appalled: “quand les poules auront des dents”, which translates to “when hens have teeth”, is analogous to the English “pigs might fly”. Coming soon: flying pigs. But there might be a baldness cure in this new research. I'll remember that as the flocks of mutant raptor-fowl move in for the kill.