DAY 330: HOOKED ON SUGAR

-->

Everything about hummingbirds is rapid. An iridescent blur to the human eye, their movements can be captured with clarity only by high-speed video. Slowed down on replay, their wings thrum like helicopter blades as they hover near food. Their hearts beat 20 times a second and their tongues dart 17 times a second to slurp from a feeding station.

It takes only three licks of their forked, tube-like tongues to reject water when

they expect nectar. They pull their beaks back, shake their heads and spit out 

the tasteless liquid. They also are not fooled by the sugar substitute that sweetens most diet cola.

From Harvard Medical School.

DAY 329: COLOURFUL HOOPOE EGGS

-->

Preen gland secretion causes hoopoes’ eggs to change colour, possibly giving signals about the robustness of the mother bird, researchers have found.

Hoopoe females use cosmetics on their eggs - and the eggs gradually change colour when they are incubated, from bluish-grey to a more saturated greenish-brown. This happens because secretion from the preen gland – a substance birds use to preen and protect their feathers – is transferred from the female hoopoe’s gland to her eggs directly with the bill and by means of belly feathers.

(Springer Science + Business Media)

DAY 328: FEED THE BIRDS, TUPPENCE A BAG

-->

For many, feeding birds at ponds and parks is a cherished childhood memory; one they lovingly recreate for their children and grandchildren. (Think Mary Poppins!) Yet tragically, thousands of birds die annually due to a condition overwhelmingly caused by people who don't know this beloved activity can be deadly.

"Angel wing" is a deformity commonly found in ducks, geese, swans and other waterfowl. There has been little scientific study done on the condition, yet most wildlife and waterfowl experts agree the overwhelming cause of angel wing is an unhealthily high protein and/or carbohydrate-based diets. The disorder causes the last joint in one or both wings to unnaturally twist outward, rather than lie flat against a bird's body. 

Birds with angel wing are stripped of their ability to fly, and therefore their main method of defence. Since the affected birds are unable to escape predators, they are often maimed or killed by them. Additionally, when life-threatening weather conditions develop, they are unable to fly away to safety, and instead starve, succumbing to injuries or freezing to death. 

The birds most likely to contract angel wing are those residing in parks, on ponds and in public areas where people feed them unhealthy food. Because birds grow much more rapidly than humans, each day's nutrition has a direct effect on development. Even a few days of improper eating can cause irreparable damage. Research suggests feeding waterfowl an unhealthy diet can accelerate growth, causing the wing to develop too quickly for proper bone support. 

(D.R. Millman, Director of Cape WildlifeCentre, New England, www.livescience.com)

DAY 327: BROWN PELICANS & EL NINO

California brown pelicans completely failed to breed at their nesting sites in Mexico this year, surveys have found. Scientists are reluctant to blame any one cause for the drastic decline in fuzzy-headed baby pelicans, but a similar drop in breeding numbers struck during previous El Niño events.

Overfishing of sardines and habitat loss could also be hurting the pelican population. But this year is the biggest drop in baby pelicans seen in nearly five decades.  Scientists have yet to officially declare an El Niño, but forecasts call for a 78 percent chance of the climatic event occurring by summer.

The pelicans' behaviour this year suggests they're already responding to the developing El Niño.

How warm water hurts baby birds:

An El Niño is a natural climate cycle that displaces cool water in the Eastern Pacific Ocean with warmer water, which disrupts fish populations. During previous El Niño years, brown pelicans trailed their shifting food supply, flocking to more northerly fishing grounds earlier than usual, studies found.  Their food migrates, and so they need to track their food.

However, more research is needed to link this year's decline to El Niño. For example, while El Nino conditions favour a boom in sardine populations, anchovies are at a low point in their natural cycle, and the oily fish is a favorite food for breeding brown pelicans.

 (www.livescience.com)

DAY 326: BIRDS & SOLAR ENERGY PLANTS

I've just read the following report on website motherboard.vice.com:

Two months ago, 34 birds were found dead or injured on the site of the Ivanpah solar plant owned by BrightSource Energy in east San Bernardino County, California. Almost half suffered from singed feathers after running afoul of the plant’s reflected beams of sunlight, according to a report from The Desert Sun. This was not an isolated incident: another 19 were found dead at the 500-megawatt Desert Sunlight plant, which is also located in California.

So what’s going on here? Why are birds dropping like their winged-brethren, flies, around these plants and what can we do?

The Californian desert has become a popular place to build solar energy plants because of the abundant space and, of course, the sun. However, the region also serves as one of the four major north-to-south trajectories for migratory birds: the Pacific Flyway. So while it seems like an ideal locale, birds who fly over these structures face some new and unusual hazards.

When it comes to death by solar farm, birds typically die in one of two ways. In the first, the glimmering sheer of solar panels might trick birds into thinking they are actually part of a body of water. And so the birds, especially waterfowl in this scenario, dive towards the panels, looking for moisture and food, only to find themselves, bones broken, dying in the middle of the arid California sand.

Blunt force trauma aside, others feel the wrath of the harnessed sunlight. At the right (or really, wrong) angle, the potent radiation bouncing off solar mirrors are enough to burn a bird’s fragile wings, abruptly sending the creature downward towards the ground and impending death. They’re like tragic avian Icaruses, except without an easily digestible moral lesson behind their fatal crashes.

Anthropogenic threats to birds are everywhere, but they vary according to the environment. In cities, the seeming invisibility of windows confuse the animals, who smash into the impenetrable glass barriers headfirst, an accident that can either stun or kill. Statistics differ: the American Bird Conservancy cites the annual number of bird deaths via window strikes at 300 million to one billion birds whereas the US Fish and Wildlife Service says its anywhere from as low as 97 million upwards to 972 million.

Whatever the actual number, it’s clear window strikes are a major concern, even causing some urban planners and architects, like those in Portland, to reconsider building methods. Will massive solar projects become the desert’s equivalent, inadvertently perplexing birds and luring them to their doom?

Since solar technology is still a neophyte in the world of energy solutions, we can’t yet know. So far, the numbers at single sites are comparatively low. But numbers only tell a part of the story: some of the victims are endangered or otherwise protected by the federal government under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. That should undoubtedly factor into future discussions on this issue.

In the future, scientists will need to undertake studies of the interactions between migratory birds, their travel patterns, and humanity’s quest for solar energy. Answers will not be quick to obtain. Much more research has been conducted on how wind power and birds mix, and the scant research covering bird mortality and solar plants is based on plants much smaller than the projects being built today.

As Eric Davis of the US Fish and Wildlife Service told The Desert Sun, “Bird migration studies have to wait for bird migrations… This is going to be months and years of trying to better understand the problem and then make better management decisions as we gain more scientific understanding.”

Ultimately, when the research is complete, sorting out this scenario will involve an unpleasant and morbid calculus. What can be done to minimize migratory bird mortality? And since no solution will likely ever be perfect, how many birds might we “permit” to die? Thankfully, the current impact is quite low, but questions like these serve as a necessary reminder that even green projects have an impact on their surrounding environment.

DAY 325: MAGPIES

The magpie is considered the villain of the animal kingdom - a pilferer obsessed with stealing trinkets. But it appears that it has been unfairly maligned all along. For despite its centuries-old reputation, new research suggests that the bird is not attracted to shiny objects after all. In fact, as animal psychologists discovered, magpies are actually quite repelled by unfamiliar items.    

Psychologists from the University of Exeter discovered that, contrary to popular belief, magpies are actually frightened of new and unfamiliar objects, rather than attracted to them.

The idea of the magpie as a pilferer that steals sparkly items for its nest is a common theme in European folklore:

Rossini made it the theme of his 1817 opera The Thieving Magpie, in which a servant girl is executed for stealing silver jewellery that had been pinched.

But scientists at the University of Exeter have now debunked the myth, proving that magpies are not the flighty thieves we thought they were.The Tintin comic ‘The Castafiore Emerald’ has a similar plot, in which a prized emerald stolen by a magpie.

The researchers carried out a series of tests on wild magpies and a group of the birds housed at a rescue centre. Under carefully controlled exposed to both shiny and non-shiny items and their reactions recorded.

Lead researcher Dr Toni Shephard, from the university’s Centre for Research in Animal Behaviour, said: ‘We did not find evidence of an unconditional attraction to shiny objects in magpies. Instead, all objects prompted responses indicating neophobia - fear of new things. We suggest that humans notice when magpies occasionally pick up shiny objects because they believe the birds find them attractive, while it goes unnoticed when magpies interact with less eye-catching items.

DAY 324: (WO)MANNING UP TO FINISH.....EGYPTIAN GEESE

                          

So, my blog hit the dust for a few weeks while I concentrated on 'other things...'
But I'm back, and although I may miss a few days here and there, I really want to complete 365 posts.......

Today's newspaper featured a shot of an Egyptian Goose strolling up Government Avenue in the Cape Town Gardens, looking very aggrieved and peeved at being photographed, as only a goose can.  

The accompanying article stated that these birds are protected in South Africa.  I wasn't aware of that, especially since there are so many of them.  

Apparently they were considered sacred by the ancient Egyptians - (whoopdeedooo!)

More info is that they are extremely territorial to their own species and will fight other pairs who try to move in on their turf.  Go, geese, go.

They like to live near water but are happy to nest in holes in big trees. They have been seen nesting in niches in the steeple of the Methodist Church in Greenmarket Square.  (Either the Deacons aren't doing their jobs, or the geese have religious leanings, LOL.)

To end on a negative note, and why not?.... They are considered pests on many local golf courses!