Birds migrate away from diseases

In a unique study, researchers at Lund University in Sweden have mapped the origins of migratory birds. They used the results to investigate and discover major differences in the immune systems of sedentary and migratory birds. The researchers conclude that migratory species benefit from leaving tropical areas when it is time to raise their young -- as moving away from diseases in the tropics enables them to survive with a less costly immune system.

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Birds without own brood help other birds with parenting, but not selflessly

Birds will sometimes care for the offspring of other birds of their own species if they anticipate future benefits. Being tolerated in another bird's territory and the chance to inherit that territory later are considered rewards for which some birds are willing to postpone their own chance of reproduction. On 23 October 2017 veni researcher Sjouke Kingma from the University of Groningen has published an article on this subject in Nature Communications.

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How camouflaged birds decide where to blend in

Animals that rely on camouflage can choose the best places to conceal themselves based on their individual appearance, new research shows.

The camouflage and concealment strategies of various animal species have been widely studied, but scientists from Exeter and Cambridge universities have discovered that individual wild birds adjust their choices of where to nest based on their specific patterns and colours.

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Seabird parents compensate for struggling partners

For species where both parents work together to raise their offspring, cooperation is key -- it's as true for birds as it is for us! A new study from The Auk: Ornithological Advancesshows how pairs of Common Murres update each other on their condition so that when one partner needs a break, the other can pick up the slack.

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Birds choose their neighbors based on personality

Oxford University researchers investigated whether the personality of birds influences their social lives -- in particular who they choose to nest near. The study involved analysing social network structure in a population of wild great tits at Wytham Woods, Oxfordshire, over six consecutive breeding seasons.

Lead author and doctoral student Katerina Johnson explained: 'We found that males, but not females, were picky about personalities, with males opting for like-minded neighbours. Our results emphasise that social interactions may play a key role in animal decisions.'

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Tracking devices reduce warblers' chances of returning from migration

The tools ornithologists use to track the journeys of migrating birds provide invaluable insights that can help halt the declines of vulnerable species. However, a new study from The Condor: Ornithological Applications shows that these data come at a cost -- in some cases, these tracking devices reduce the chances that the birds carrying them will ever make it back to their breeding grounds.

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Why guillemot chicks leap from the nest before they can fly

Before they have the wing span to actually permit them to fly, young guillemots (also known as murres) leap hundreds of metres off towering cliffs and flutter down towards the sea, guided by their fathers. Scientists have long wondered why these tiny chicks make this remarkable leap, hoping to avoid the rocks below them, in what seems an unlikely survival strategy for a species.

It had earlier been suggested that murre offspring headed off to sea once the chicks reached about one-quarter of their adult size and were large enough to defend themselves from potential predators and too large to be fed at the colony. So that this seemingly death-defying behaviour could be better understood as being, in some ways, a tradeoff between the safety offered in the colony and fast growth rates at sea, where more food is available.

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Common Cuckoos can distinguish the calls of their neighbors from a stranger's

Male cuckoos appear to have a unique call that makes them distinguishable to and from other males. A new study appearing in Animal Behaviour shows that an individual cuckoo call may determine how a male responds to an interloper in his territory -- behaving more tolerantly towards neighbors and more aggressively towards strangers.

Common cuckoos, Cuculus canorus, are brood parasites: they lay their eggs in the nests of other bird species, and let these hosts incubate their eggs and feed and rear the nestlings. Although cuckoos do not show parental care, they demonstrate complex social behavior, including territoriality and male-male aggression. Cuckoos have a well-known and simple two-phrase call ("cu" and "coo"), uttered by males during the breeding season. Previous studies have suggested that the "cu-coo" call of males is individually unique, allowing discrimination between different classes of males.

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Why Birds Love Mobs

When I tell Katie Sieving, an avian wildlife ecologist at the University of Florida, that it’s probably a stretch to call “mobbing” an act of heroism, she laughs. Mobbing, as the term suggests, involves a mob: It’s when a group of animals band together to harass and drive out a common predator—a behavior already well-known to the ancients by the time Aristotle described it in 350 BC, in Historia Animalium. Squirrels, fish, African ungulates, otters, and even insects will mob predators, but birds have developed it to an art form.

Sieving calls the small North American songbirds she studies, known as titmice, heroes all the time. “They’re like the crossing guards of the forest,” she says, “letting the other birds know that it’s safe to cross.”

Lees meer: Nautilus

Nest-boxes no substitute for tree cavities, says study

Conservationists cannot consider nest-boxes to be a substitute for naturally occurring tree cavities, a study has suggested.

A study found the artificial nesting sites had higher humidity levels and poorer insulation than tree cavities.

Researchers also found some species, such as great tits, favoured nest-boxes while others, such as marsh tits, favoured naturally available sites.
The findings are reported in the Forest Ecology and Management journal.
The team of scientists from Wroclaw University, Poland, and the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, UK, wanted to produce data that highlighted the anecdotal evidence between tree cavities and nest boxes.

Lees meer: BBC news