November 2010

75% British barn owls bred in man-made nest boxes. BBC EarthNews Engineer Provides New Insight Into Pterodactyl Flight: they soared using thermally driven air. ScienceDaily DNA uncovers a new parrot species... and it is already endangered. ScienceDaily Leading Canadian conservation groups say wind farm doesn’t belong in Important Bird Area BirdLife International Some amazing shots (enjoy!) NewScientist How Hummingbirds Fight the Wind: Robotic Wing May Reveal Answer ScienceDaily Physicists say bird song could be less complex than it seems (or... if you think you understand something build it) ScienceDaily Across the Southeast of USA, volunteer banders study apparent shifts in the cold-weather ranges of several hummingbird species. National Wildlife Colouring the temperature of a starlings' roost. BBC EarthNews The 'bird people' of St Kilda (Interesting article and two videos on how this people made a living from birds) BBC EarthNews Young light-bellied Brent geese learn their migratory destinations from parents ScienceDaily BOU Small Research Grants. Awards of up to £2000 per project aimed at supporting small projects outright and to part-fund medium-sized research programmes. (DEADLINE December 31, 2010) BirdGrantsBlog Sparrowhawks behind sparrows decline in UK. MailOnline (on this Auk paper) Prehistoric Winged Reptiles 'Pole-Vaulted' Into Flight ScienceDaily Alaskan Birds with Beak Deformities A DC Birding Blog (on a USGS new)

Cyprus: Two MILLION birds caught illegally 10,000Birds (on a BirdLife Cyprus new) Feather-Loss Disorder in African and Magellanic Penguins Conservation Magazine (on a Waterbirds paper) European Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2010 (amazing Kingfisher capture) BBC EartNews Polar bears can't eat geese into extinction, but predating on gesse eggs may help bears to survive ScienceDaily (on an Oikos paper) Altitudinal moult migration in hummingbirds Conservation Magazine (on a J Trop Ecol paper) Bird-mimics steal meerkats' food BBC EarthNews (on a Proceedings of the Royal Society B paper) How ostriches run faster than us BBC News Why power lines 'invisible' to bustards cranes and storks? BBC News Golden eagles score key victory in battle with wind farm firms in Scotland NEWS.scotsman.com A Peregrine's (Nocturnal?) Diet A DC Birding Blog Study launched to assess the impact of wind farms on golden eagles. ScienceDaily Cosmetic uropygial gland in flamingos. ScienceDaily (on a Beh Ecol Sociobiol paper)