Adventure Ausrama Blog

Pesticides have side effects on animals and humans. A particular  neonicotinoid pesticide is making birds lose weight . In Canadian research crowned sparrows were given low and high amounts of imidaclprid on seeds. Even birds on the low dose lost weight within six hours compared to a control group. The high amount killed some birds. It seems that appetite is suppressed. White-crowned sparrow The aves who received the low dose had transmitters attached and were released. Those on the low dose did not leave for three days and those on the high dose left in four days. The control birds flew within half a day.  It is believed that imidacloprid had to be worked out of the body. Only a minuscule amount of the pesticide stopped the birds from eating. Earlier research has shown that imidacloprid kills bees. It means the whole bird and insect family is susceptible to the pesticide. Something has to be done. Both groups of birds ate agricultural seed from crops and fattene...

 ▶ Pet African grey is the cleverest parrot of all. | stories news.| parrot of grey trainer ◀ | The bird wins the intelligences test!  Alex, a 31 year old African grey parrot, knows over 100 words.  He can count and identify shapes and colors.  The bird makes regular appearances on television programs.  He has not only learned many words, but continues to learn more.    ||| do in parrot on to alex is to bright at pet in grey parrot. as alex it news| Dr Pepperberg bought Alex in 1977 from a pet shop.  She had little hope that he would actually mimic spoken words.  Over the years the "genius" has mastered an extensive list of achievements.  The mannerisms of the trainer was also copied.  Stunningly, attempts were made to improve his pronunciation and it worked.      ||| pet of grey an bright go parrot as of grey up |    Sadly,  Alex has died.  Just before he went to a better place he looke...

Nuclear physics used to track australian waterbirds. Australia's native birds are on the decline - those damn humans! Yes, we are destroying the planet and we have to do something about it.  Obtaining data on bird numbers is paramount. Nuclear physics is the answer.  Researchers are examining feathers recently dropped by waterbirds. It provides information on where birds have been and what they have eaten.  The I-TRAX Core Scanner shows chemical changes over time. A mass spectrometer is also used to determine oxygen, hydrogen and nitrogen isotopes. Feathers are composed of keratin like hair. Water sources have different chemical composition. This is stored in the keratin, so a map can be created of where birds have been living. The method of feather analysis is much cheaper than leg banding or satellite tracking. Members of the public can contribute. At present scientists are picking up feathers then posting them to the Australian Nuclear Science and Te...

The first singing birds originated in Australia - science. Singing birds originated in Australia. This is true. Just when they moved to other parts of the world is not yet clearly known. Evidence from DNA sequencing and fossils point to this happening approximately 23 million years ago. They first "hopped" from island to island until they reached Indonesia. From there it was easy for them to spread to Asia. The progression to populate the world occurred rapidly, like when humans moved out of Africa.  It took only a few thousand years for the initial "breakout". Birds of song could not leave Australia before 23 million years ago as Indonesia before that time was a small island and there was a huge distance of ocean for the birds to cross to reach other land masses. Half of all bird species are song birds. The only continent where they did not go is Antarctica. This is a mystery because penguins are birds, so the cold barrier is not significant for birds.  Man...

Some scientists are playing with the truth about colorful plumage in male birds. They are claiming that bright colors as well as dull colors in females are to assist in blending into the environment. This is rot. Bright colors always stand out from any background. Because just under half of bird species have females with brighter plumage than males, this supposedly proves their case. Have they considered that females need to be attractive to males as well? They predict that bright plumage will be lost in evolution. It hasn't lost been so far and there is no support for this claim. Female humans are different than males and it should stay this way. There is no evolutionary pressure for it not to continue. Birds are no different. The premise "that both natural selection and sexual selection were (are) influential to bird coloration" is not substantiated in their research. This is just an opinion. There is no proof. Indeed, evidence for this view is virt...

There is no way that Australia can prevent the extinction of some native animal species. Some can  be preserved with a national gene bank. Though a seed bank has already been set up to save native flora, nothing is planned for fauna. Present debate is centered on the loss of the northern and southern gastric brooding frog. If a gene bank had existed the frog would have been preserved. Australia has the worst record of native animals going extinct than anywhere else, not something to be proud of. Over 40 birds and mammals have disappeared since European settlement. Because government has been slow in allocating resources, private organizations have started gene banks. Indeed Taronga Conservation society Australia has stored genes from 20 native animals. This is far from adequate. Over 2,000 species need preservation. With the Taronga Conservation Society Australia, the Animal Gene Storage and Resource Centre of Australia at Monash University has a total of 100 endangere...

Human beings may be having problems with variable weather in Australia, but animals are coping well. Zebra finches, pelicans and woodswallows seem to know when the weather changes. If the Spring comes early they nest early. If it is too dry to breed they hold off until times are better. They change their breeding point by months either way. When glaciation was at its peak the woodswallow population actually boomed. In boom times there is a larger pool of gene carriers ideal for genetic selection when times become harder. More of the birds die off. Yet, the survivors have traits that suite the changed environment. Australia has the harshest of climates with long periods of drought. Consequently, birds such as pelicans live a longtime on a meagre diet so they can wait for good times to breed. Zebra finches seem to do well even when times are very hard. http://www.adventure--australia.blogspot.com/ http://www.tysaustralia.blogspot.com/ http://adventure--australia.blogspot.com/atom.xml...

Human impact on native flora and fauna is real. There seems to be no way the detrimental affects can be ameliorated. Aboriginals have been in Australia for 40,000 years. apart from the unanswered question about extinction of mega fauna Aboriginals did not alter the external environment at all. Sedentary agriculture is the major contributing factor to habitat damage. Planting mono-crops seriously changes land features. In Western Australia, for example, water points are located at 50 sq km on average. In its pre-European natural state water holes could be found 2.5 sq km apart. This is serious change with species of native birds declining. Unless we set areas aside as pristine, protected sectors only introduced pest species will remain. Even without the pest birds, the proportion of native birds is altered. Some die out while others increase in number. The ecosystem is no longer in balance. http://www.adventure--australia.blogspot.com/ http://www.tysaustralia.bl...

The Northern Territory has a low population density, so it could expected that natural fauna would remain dominant over human destruction of the environment. Apparently, this is not the case. A study observed Aboriginal elders and their interaction with wildlife. Comparing findings with previous records showed a decline in the mammal population. Only small numbers of quoll, black-footed rat and golden bandicoot survive. Nearly 50 new animals have been included in the endangered list this year. Two mammals and a bird have now been declared extinct. Small and medium size animals are affected most. Large animals are unaffected. It seems large animals such as kangaroos benefit from the presence of humans. Planned action is proving beneficial. Improved fire control has raised the number of gouldian finches. Reptiles are doing well. Specimens of the bronzeback lizard have been found. They were thought to be extinct in the Northern Territory. Damage has been done by the influx o...

Birds are the most diverse creatures on Earth.  Not only have they changed into different species on large continents, they have also adapted specifically to environments on islands. A new classification system is in the form of a circle with increasing diversity as one moves out in time from the center.  different types of birds are correctly located on the figure covering a period of 50 million years. There is not one specific ancestor.  "Base" species take the form  of a circle of time moving out from the center and new kinds of birds branch off directly to the outer edge.  Fast evolving birds are in red; slower ones are drawn in blue. Significantly birds such as woodpeckers often split into new species, while hornbills, for example, did not.  There was more diversification in the Western Hemisphere.  Furthermore, species did not proliferate in the tropics because the climate remained stable there over a long period. http://www.adventure--austral...

A three month old boy was brought into the emergency section of a local hospital with deep cuts to his head. X-rays showed skull fractures. In consultation with the boy's parents doctors discovered that the child had been the target of an attack by a rooster. Such assaults are not uncommon. In another incident a sixteen months old girl had a swollen face and seizures after a rooster went for her head. She had to have intravenous penicillin. An operation was carried out to drain an abscess on her brain. Unfortunately, she died. Adults have also been attacked. A sixty year old women developed lockjaw after being pecked on the face. She was given a tracheotomy to help her breath. To assist recovery the hospital kept her sedated for a month in a darkened room. Chickens are dirty creatures pecking around in the dirt. Bacteria thrive on their bodies. Tetanus injections must be given when an attack by a fowl is suspected. People should be watchful of all birds. E...

Birds "talk" to each other, between species! For, example it was found that fairy-wrens learn the alarm calls of other types of bird. These birds have calls with similar acoustic structures. And they learn by living side by side with other birds over time. Alarm calls of scrubwrens were played to wrens in Canberra and Macquarie. Only fairy-wrens in Canberra (where there are scrubwrens ) fled for cover. Fairy wrens in Macquarie (where there are no scrubwrens) did not respond. In another test, recordings of honeyeaters were also played to fairy-wrens. The fairy-wrens sought cover.  They had learned the honeyeater calls. Professor Gisela Kaplan believes that the behavior is not totally due to learning. She believes that the brains of birds are preprogrammed to act when they hear alarms of other birds. Tests done on magpies showed that they found cover only if the alarm calls of other birds were played close to them. http://www.adventure--australia.blogspot.com/ http://www...

You would think that birds are happy to live near humans as they can get easy access to food. Unfortunately, this is not the case, particularly for large birds. Sound drives them away. Traffic noise and heavy machinery are the culprits. Larger birds use low-pitched songs to communicate. This is drowned out by engines and clunking machines. Birds and nests were counted near natural gas wells. Compressors on the wells run day and night. The noise is like a reving motorcycle. Thirty species of bird were surveyed. The number of large birds was very low. Small birds have high-pitched songs that can still be heard over rumbling machinery, so their lives are unaffected. http://www.adventure--australia.blogspot.com/ http://www.tysaustralia.blogspot.com/ http://www.feeds.feedburner.com/AdventureAustralia http://www.technorati.com/blogs/ http://adventure--australia.blogspot.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Biology

Australian wild cockatoos have been "infiltrated" by domesticated cockatoos who have escaped. Wild birds are copying words learned by escaped household pets. Cockatoos are not the only wild birds being affected in this way. Galahs and corellas shout out words that startle people. Escaped birds breed with their wild counterparts and chicks learn to talk from parents. The parrot family is extremely good at mimicking sounds they hear. Songbirds and hummingbirds can also do this to a degree. The problem is cockatoos and parakeets are social animals. To wild birds a word is just a new sound to be learned and used socially. Human babbling to learn language is called subsong in birds, where chicks learn by trial and error. Like humans, cockatoos continue to learn "words" all through their lives. "Natural" cockatoo sounds go together to form a language which has its own grammar. Human words are being integrated into this language. A pet bird may only hea...

The ubiquitous house sparrow found in just about every country is being examined by scientists. They successfully populate new regions by discarding their "companion" parasites. Though they force their way into new niches, they don't kill off native birds and animals with their resident parasites. Sparrow parasites spread avian malaria. It seems that this disease is not spread to new areas because parasites that carry it are discarded. Without this deadly malady sparrows thrive. House sparrows originally came from Western Europe. They successfully live alongside humans. The cheeky little birds get much closer than other birds to people. This enables them to get food easily. http://www.adventure--australia.blogspot.com/ http://www.tysaustralia.blogspot.com/ http://www.feeds.feedburner.com/AdventureAustralia http://www.technorati.com/blogs/ http://adventure--australia.blogspot.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Biology