bird research – आवारा मुसाफिर

New research unlocks clues about the iconic flight of the wandering Albatross

December 4, 2022409 Views

Wandering albatrosses, which are an iconic sight in the Southern Ocean, are highly adapted to long-distance soaring flight. Their wingspan of up to 11 feet is the largest known of any living bird, and yet wandering albatrosses fly while hardly flapping their wings. Instead, they depend on dynamic soaring—which exploits wind shear near the ocean surface to gain energy—in addition to updrafts and turbulence. Now researchers, including Philip Richardson, a senior scientist emeritus in Physical Oceanography Department at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), are unlocking more clues about exactly how wandering albatrosses are such amazing flyers. In a new paper analyzing GPS tracks of wandering albatrosses, researchers have found that the birds’ airspeed increases with wi...

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Cacophony of Jackdaws! Wait, they are trying to reach consensus

AWARA MUSAFIR BUREAU

May 29, 2022624 Views

On cold, dark winter mornings, small black crows known as jackdaws can be heard calling loudly to one another from their winter roosting spots before taking off simultaneously right around sunrise. Now, researchers who’ve studied their daily activities in unprecedented detail report evidence that these groups of hundreds of individuals rely on a “democratic” decision-making process to coordinate with one another and take to the skies all at once. The findings are reported in the recent issue of journal Current Biology. “Like humans, large animal groups can use decision-making processes to overcome their individual differences and reach a kind of ‘democratic’ consensus,” says Alex Thornton of the University of Exeter. Previous studies had investigated consensus decision-making in...

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Migratory birds have lighter-colored feathers

AWARA MUSAFIR BUREAU

December 7, 2021608 Views

Migratory birds are specially adapted to find their way over extreme distances that represent remarkable tests of endurance. Now, researchers reporting December 6 in the journal Current Biology have discovered an unexpected way that migratory birds keep their cool during such arduous journeys: lighter-colored feathers. "We found across nearly all species of birds, migratory species tend to be lighter colored than non-migratory species,” said Kaspar Delhey of the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology, Seewiesen, Germany. “We think that lighter plumage coloration is selected in migratory species because it reduces the risk of overheating when exposed to sunshine. Lighter surfaces absorb less heat than darker ones, as anybody wearing dark clothes on a sunny day can attest! This would be pa...