Pigeons are more living helicopters than flying rats

Pigeons are more living helicopters than flying rats

Video: How pigeons turn in flight

The humble pigeon could provide the unlikely inspiration for a flock of small military drones that can navigate enclosed spaces. It turns out the common birds can redirect their flight path with the agility of a helicopter. Ivo Ros of Harvard University and colleagues let three pigeons loose in a corridor that incorporated a sharp 90-degree turn. They placed 16 markers on each pigeon's body and set up nine synchronised high-speed cameras along the corridor to track the birds' position as they flew around the bend.

Starlings give clue to irrational preferences

Starlings give clue to irrational preferences

Research into decision-making by European starlings (Sturnus vulgaris) may help to explain why many animals, including humans, sometimes exhibit irrational preferences.

New model more accurately describes migratory animals’ extinction risk

Link: New model more accurately describes migratory animals’ extinction risk

Athens, Ga. - Predicting the risk of extinction is a complicated task, especially for species that migrate between breeding and wintering sites. Researchers at the University of Georgia and Tulane University have developed a mathematical model that may make such predictions more accurate. Their work appears in the early online edition of the Royal Society journal Biology Letters.

Zoologger: The only cross-dressing bird of prey

Link: Zoologger: The only cross-dressing bird of prey

Species: Circus aeruginosus

Habitat: throughout Europe and western Asia, playing dress-up

Gliding over a bed of reeds in south-west France, a male western marsh harrier circles his nest. Scanning the surrounding area, he spots a second male on a nest just 400 metres away from his own.

Ordinarily this would be the start of a fight. Male marsh harriers are territorial, and don’t like another male to set up home within 700 metres of the nest. Yet the new neighbour merits nothing more than a long look.

How Soda Caps Are Killing Birds

Link: How Soda Caps Are Killing Birds

Remember those haunting images of animals stuck in plastic soda rings? This is worse. Since 2009, photographer Chris Jordan has been documenting birds on Midway Atoll way out in the Pacific Ocean — near what’s known as the “Pacific Garbage Patch” or, essentially, a swirling heap of plastic the size of Texas.

What Jordan found on those islands were carcasses of baby birds that have died an unnerving death: According to the BBC, “about one-third of all albatross chicks die on Midway, many as the result of being mistakenly fed plastic by their parents.”