Satellite telemetry, tiny geolocation tags and passive acoustic recording are providing new insights into bird migration and vital data for conservation.
Birds will shriek and dive at each other over food, territory or mates, but only a small number of species sport actual weapons. The reason: Flying matters more for their survival than fighting.
Colorized version of a 1935 photo of a male ivory-billed woodpecker, now believed to be extinct. Photographed by Arthur A. Allen.
Forestry Images/Wikipedia
Could mating preferences, like females preferring males who sing complex songs, affect the evolution of learning? Insights from birds could have clues for how people learn throughout their lives.
A male Olive-backed Euphonia (Euphonia gouldi), photographed in Costa Rica.
Andy Morffew
Birds spend a lot of time and energy singing, but they don’t do it the same way in every season of the year. And some can’t sing at all. What’s the purpose of birdsong?
Male collared flycatcher, singing for multiple females.
Kennerth Kullman/Shutterstock.com
Biologists investigated whether birds that search for multiple mates would evolve ever more elaborate songs to attract them. What they found might have surprised Darwin.
Robins are a much loved Christmas icon, but wind turbines installed in their habitat are affecting their song, with worrying consequences.
Could music one day be something we experience through augmented reality, responding to the way we move through the world? Sound supplemented with colours and shapes?
Mavis Wong/The Conversation NY-BD-CC