Adoptions de jeunes buses par des pygargues.

L'adoption chez les oiseaux est la fourniture de soins à des poussins ou à des œufs par des adultes qui n'ont pas lien de parenté avec eux.
Les cas d'adoption interspécifique ont été rarement rapportés : on a toutefois noté en Amérique du Nord, des cas de Pygargues à tête blanche (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) ayant adopté de jeunes Buses à queue rousse (Buteo jamaicensis).

Ivan Literak et Jakub Mraz ont décrit en 2011 dans le Wilson Journal of Ornithology l'observation en mai 2007 d'une Buse variable (Buteo buteo), âgée d'environ deux semaines, dans un nid de Pygargues à queue blanche (Haliaeetus albicilla) à Hrachoviste, en Tchéquie.

Lees meer: Ornithomedia.com

Climate Adaptation Difficult for Europe's Birds

For the past 20 years, the climate in Europe has been getting warmer. Species of bird and butterfly which thrive in cool temperatures therefore need to move further north. However, they have difficulty adapting to the warmer climate quickly enough, as shown by new research published in the journal Nature Climate Change.

Åke Lindström is Professor of Animal Ecology at Lund University, Sweden. Together with other European researchers he has looked at 20 years' worth of data on birds, butterflies and summer temperatures. During this period, Europe has become warmer and set temperatures have shifted northwards by 250 km. Bird and butterfly communities have not moved at the same rate.

Lees meer: ScienceDaily

Mere fear shrinks bird families

Nothing but fear itself can actually be dangerous for nesting birds.

Song sparrows protected from attack but subjected to recordings of predator yowls and leaf-crunching approach noises raised 40 percent fewer offspring in a year compared with neighbors living amid innocuous noises, says population ecologist Liana Zanette of the University of Western Ontario in Canada. Predators do not need to kill a single prey to have a big effect, she says.

Lees meer: Science News