PhysOrg

Great egrets in the Everglades are losing their sexual motivation because they are exposed to mercury through the fish they eat, a University of Florida study using more than 20 years of data has found. View the full article

Fossils recovered from Antarctica in the 1980s represent the oldest giant members of an extinct group of birds that patrolled the southern oceans with wingspans of up to 21 feet (6.4 meters) that would dwarf the 11½-foot wingspan of today's largest bird, the wandering albatross. View the full article

Each autumn, migratory birds in Europe set off on long and arduous journeys to spend the winter in the warmer south. They are not alone as around 20 percent of all bird species worldwide are migratory, moving between separate breeding and wintering sites each year. Some species migrate thousands of kilometers in just a few days or weeks whilst others will only travel short distances between breeding and wintering grounds. In contrast the majority of bird species do not migrate and remain in the same location year round. The question of why some birds migrate whilst others do not remains relatively unresolved. View the full article

To see wildlife in the Triangle, sometimes you need go no further than your own backyard. A new study helps explain why some animals are sometimes more often found in suburban areas than wild ones: because people are feeding them—sometimes accidentally—and to a lesser degree, providing them with shelter. View the full article

The population of Galapagos penguins and flightless cormorants, two species endemic to the islands, has seen a record increase, study results released Friday showed. View the full article

The Falkland Islands are a South Atlantic refuge for some of the world's most important seabird species, including five species of penguins, Great Shearwaters, and White-chinned Petrels. In recent years, their breeding grounds in the coastal tussac (Poa flabellata) grasslands have come under increasing pressure from sheep grazing and erosion. And unlike other regions of the globe, there has been no long-term monitoring of the responses of these burrowing and ground nesting seabirds to climate change. View the full article

Indigenous names for plants and animals should be restored within the scientific naming system according to AUT's Professor Len Gillman and University of Auckland's Dr Shane Wright. Their proposal was published today in Communications Biology. View the full article

A new study by scientists from the University of Tasmania, CSIRO and the University of South Australia is the first to find a relationship between plastic debris ingested by seabirds and liver concentrations of mineral metals, with potential links to pollution and nutrition. View the full article

The Dutch government said Thursday it is ordering poultry farms to keep their birds indoors after six wild swans were found recently dead and tests on two of the birds came back positive for a highly pathogenic strain of bird flu. View the full article

An investigation by the Department of Microbiology and Ecology of the University of Valencia published in the Ibis magazine warns about the impact of human activities –mainly dog walking– on one of the threatened bird species that reproduce in these ecosystems, the Kentish plover. The study calls for the adoption of measures that separate both uses and allow the coexistence between the recreational use of beaches and the conservation of birds. View the full article

Ravens, crows, magpies and their relatives are known for their exceptional intelligence, which allows them to solve complex problems, use tools or outsmart their conspecifics. One capability, however, that we humans value highly, seems to be missing from their behavioral repertoire: generosity. Only very few species within the crow family have so far been found to act generously in experimental paradigms, while the highly intelligent ravens, for example, have demonstrated their egoistic tendencies in multiple studies. Lisa Horn of the of the Department of Behavioral and Cognitive Biology of the University of Vienna can now demonstrate, together with Jorg Massen of Utrecht University and an international team of researchers, that the social life of corvids is a crucial factor for whether the birds benefit their group members or not. View the full article

NOAA has published a peer-reviewed State of the Monument report that was jointly produced by the co-trustees of Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument. The report includes information on the status and trends of living resources, habitats, ocean conditions, maritime and cultural archaeological resources, and the human activities and natural events that affect them. View the full article

Scientists from the University of Bristol and the Royal Veterinary College have discovered how birds are able to fly in gusty conditions—findings that could inform the development of bio-inspired small-scale aircraft. View the full article

On the southern exterior wall of the Dome of the Rock, a very important Islamic shrine in Jerusalem's Old City, there are two marble slabs, both carved from the same stone and placed side by side to form a symmetrical pattern, that depicts two birds. In a recent article published in the Journal of Near Eastern Studies, "Solomon and The Petrified Birds on the Dome of the Rock," author Elon Harvey explores the history of this marble decoration and describes how different narratives about Solomon and two birds contributed to the multiple understandings of this imagery. View the full article

New research has revealed more bird populations—including penguins and pigeons—that live in close proximity to the urban environment are carrying drug resistant bacteria that can cause serious infections in humans. View the full article

The tawny frogmouth is one of Australia's most-loved birds. In fact, it was first runner-up in the Guardian/BirdLife Australia bird of the year poll (behind the endangered black-throated finch). View the full article

Small farms in the developing world do not perform better than large ones if costs and labor are factored in rather than just crop production, says a new study. View the full article

A unique DNA packaging mechanism may enhance night vision in owls, helping them succeed as the only avian nocturnal predators. View the full article

Pakistani authorities said Saturday they had foiled an attempt to smuggle dozens of endangered falcons worth more than one million dollars out of the country. View the full article

The relationship between the whitebark pine (Pinus albicaulis), an iconic tree of western mountaintops, and the Clark's Nutcracker (Nucifraga columbiana), a brash bird in the crow family, is often used as an example of the biological concept of mutualism: a relationship between species where both benefit. The pine provides large, nutritious seeds to the nutcracker. The nutcracker buries these seeds for later use in scattered hiding spots, inevitably failing to retrieve some and effectively planting the next generation of whitebark pine. But the mutualism between the pine and the nutcracker is not equal. While the pine depends heavily on nutcrackers for seed dispersal and germination, the nutcracker merely prefers the whitebark pine's seeds. If whitebark pine seeds aren't available or abundant, the highly mobile nutcracker will fly off and find another food source. View the full article

Plastic gathered from remote corners of the South Pacific Ocean, including nesting areas of New Zealand albatrosses, has confirmed the global threat of plastic pollution to seabirds. View the full article

People aren't the only ones who show sympathy. Birds also seem to care about the fate of conspecifics. They notice how much food the others already have and then share theirs with individuals that were not given any. "They seem to take the each other's perspective into account in their decision, and thus seem to show sympathy," said Utrecht-based biologist Jorg Massen in an experiment with azure-winged magpies. He published his findings together with colleagues from the University of Vienna and the Swedish Lund University on September 30 in Scientific Reports. View the full article

Many bird species can find their way home even after being brought to remote or unfamiliar locations. Over 40 years of research on homing pigeons have shown that environmental odors play a crucial role in this process. Yet the chemical identity of these odors has remained a mystery. An international team of scientists from the Max Planck Institutes for Chemistry (Mainz) and of Animal Behavior (Radolfzell), and the Universities of Konstanz, Pisa and Mainz has now identified potential chemical navigational cues that could be used by homing pigeons. Based on the collected data, the researchers were also able to create regional olfactory maps for marine emissions, biogenic compounds, and anthropogenic mixed air and to establish the existence of regional navigable chemical gradients in the air. View the full article

From Mother Goose nursery rhymes to the Beatles' "Blackbird," our love for birds is woven throughout world cultures. As deforestation and climate change threaten the habitats of birds, scientists are beginning to take stock of the cultural values that are also at risk. View the full article

Each spring, billions of land birds—thrushes, warblers, orioles, tanagers, and more—migrate through the night, navigating the coast of the Gulf of Mexico. Even greater numbers migrate in the fall. During the day, these birds stop to rest, recover and refuel for the next leg of their journey. These two phases of migration—passage (flight) and stopover (rest)—are well understood in ornithology but had previously only been studied independently. View the full article