birds (Page 10)

Scientists have discovered that city birds are smarter than country birds. Global warming may already be driving some species into extinction. BUT some birds are a lot SMARTER than others, and THEY may survive. And new discoveries indicate that birds may use ley lines to navigate.

City birds seem to have an advantage over rural birds, because they are adaptable enough to survive in a much larger range of conditions. These are the birds that may make it through climate change. Biologist John Wingfield says, “Urban habitats aren’t easy, so the birds have to have developed coping mechanisms.”
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A large number of crows are dying in Lewiston, Maine, and the pattern of their deaths does not suggest either disease or accidental poisoning. It could be that the birds are being intentionally poisoned, but the fact that their deaths have been confined to a few certain trees in the area mitigates against this as well, and suggests that these deaths might be a genuine mystery.
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Scientists are still trying to figure outhow birds getaround. They also want to understand how birds from thesame species may be isolated from each other for months, butstill somehow know exactly when to return home to meet upwith their mates again in the spring. It was once thoughtthat bird pairs stayed together when they migrated, but nowbiologists think this isn’t the case.

Patricia Reaney writes that biologists are studyingIcelandic migratory birds called black-tailed godwits thatrarely see each other, spend winters in different countriesand don’t communicate for long periods but can stillcoordinate their journeys, from different countries athousand miles apart, so they arrive back at their Icelandbreeding grounds within a few days of each other.
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Sleep researchers want to know how birds are able to migratethousands of miles every year on very little sleep. Theystudied sparrows in their laboratory and found the birdsreduced their sleep time by two-thirds during the periodwhen they would ordinarily be migrating but still functionedwell. But during times when they wouldn’t have beenmigrating, sleep deprivation impaired their performance.
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