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Chicken Head Tracking
Our Editor Antonio Nafarrate has sent us this: Hello all and happy 2015. Please check enclosed forwarded video that is definite proof that birds have in their brains a Schuler tuned gyroscopically stabilized inertial platform. Best wishes from Antonio Nafarrate. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dPlkFPowCc
How young cuckoos find their winter grounds
Please find this interesting link to important work on Cuckoos done by Kasper Thorup and his team in Denmark. http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0168940 They were able to tag and therefore track fledgling cuckoos. This work is very important as the major question for us is, how does a fledgling cuckoo find its way to its wintering grounds in…
Migrant bird population declines, an African perspective
http://safari-ecology.blogspot.fr/2012/03/migrant-bird-population-declines.html This web site gives us some real insight into the migratory habits of birds in Africa. Please follow the links too. We are fascinated in Wheatears as they like the Bar-tailed Godwit they breed in the Arctic and yet make a remarkable straight great circle flight alone to their wintering grounds in Africa. It is wonderful to have…
Traditional Shepherding and Transumance in the Cevennes
Transumance is the seasonal movement of animals from the lowlands to high pastures for the summer months. This article and images come from witnessing Transumance in the Cevennes each year and talking to Annie Lashermes whose flock it is. The tradition of Transumance goes back millennia. Richard Nissen Editor <<<<< Transumance routes A shepherd with…
The energy and mechanisms needed for cryptochrome navigation
At the RIN 13 animal navigation conference there was a lot about bird navigation and particularly, the Continental Robin, Erithacus rubecula which it is proposed, navigates through the action of the cryptochromes in their eyes which are disrupted by radical pairs caused by the effect of a magnetic field. This means that in theory they…
Chris the Cuckoo running later than ever
In previous years, Chris has been one of the first tagged Cuckoos to cross the Sahara desert but this year he seems to be on a much more relaxed schedule. His previous arrival dates south, of the Sahara desert, were mid July but right now he’s not even in Africa – he’s still in Italy!…