Pigeons And Sparrows In UK Face Bird Flu Risk

It has been warned by Government officials that the much dreaded bird flu virus may be carried across by pigeons into city centres in UK//. The feral birds have the potential of posing a serious health hazard, specifically in the urban areas, as they are susceptible to infection by the H5N1 bird fl...

Wet or dry, Montana still threatened by West Nile

...believes that birds and not mosquitoes are responsible for bringing West Nile virus into the state. Those could be a variety of birds -- ranging from sparrows and robins to shore birds -- coming from various locations. It appears that West Nile virus is transmitted between birds as well as between mosquit...

Early bird doesn't always get worm, UNC researcher finds

...t. But after studying a population of Lincolns sparrows in a remote stretch of Colorados San Juan Mountain...pens to eggs before they hatch. Female Lincolns sparrows lay one egg per day, usually producing three to fi...fairly harsh even during the summer when Lincoln's sparrows breed, said Sockman. Its often freezing at night, ...

Sparrows in China Carry Bird Flu Virus

...ly reported that they found H5N1 bird flu virus in sparrows two years ago, the first time the virus has been d...'s Hubei province tested excrement samples from 38 sparrows after an outbreak of bird flu in a county in Henan... are two years old and there is no indication that sparrows pose a risk," said Li, adding that scientists foun...

Sparrows in Biological News

Eavesdropping comes naturally to young song sparrows

Long before the National Security Agency began eavesdropping on the phone calls of Americans, young song sparrows were listening to and learning the tunes sung by their neighbors. University of Washington researchers exploring how male song sparrows (Melospiza melodia) acquire their song reperto...

Bird songs change with environment

...versity) has found that the songs of white-crowned sparrows change over time in response to changing habitats....n birds. Derryberry says she first noticed that sparrows seem to be changing their tunes while working on h...pt to be garbled by reverberation. "Young male sparrows learn to sing by listening to adult males nearby,"...

Village bird study highlights loss of wildlife knowledge from one

...nisable birds - sparrows, starlings, bluetits and wood pigeons - had increased or declined in the village in the last 20 years. In reality, numbers of sparrows and starlings have declined in the area over this period, whilst wood pigeons and blue tits have increased. The results showed that older people co...

Why the swamp sparrow is hitting the high notes

... AUDIO: The slow trills of the swamp sparrows can be heard during spring and summer across the E...shed online in Biology Letters is entitled Swamp sparrows Modulate Vocal Performance in an Aggressive Contex...ions," Searcy said. The slow trills of the Swamp sparrows can be heard during spring and summer across the E...

Study: Bird diversity lessens human exposure to West Nile Virus

...rvoir' species that urbanites and suburbanites and even rural dwellers in heavily farmed landscapes see are crows, grackles, house finches, blue jays, sparrows and American robins, with the robin being the most prolific carrier of WNV. Robins are anthrophilic they love being around humans and it's relativ...

Is that song sexy or just so-so?

...ny species, including humans. Maney led a previous study on white-throated sparrows that suggested hormones may modulate the way the auditory system processes ...ial behavior network. The research group treated female white-throated sparrows with estrogen, to mimic the levels seen during the breeding season, and com...

News tips from the Journal of Neuroscience

... levels, growing during the reproductive season and then shrinking via neurodegeneration. These changes can be induced experimentally in white-crowned sparrows by controlling testosterone levels and photoperiod. To determine whether inhibiting caspasethe primary mediator of programmed cell deathcould prevent ...

For migrating sparrows, kids have a compass, but adults have the map

... The scientists have shown that migrating adult sparrows can find their way to their winter nesting grounds..., the team decided to fit a group of white-crowned sparrows with tiny radio transmitters no heavier than a pap... from a small plane. The team first brought 30 sparrows to Princeton from northern Washington state, where...

City birds better than rural species in coping with human disruption

...es would be expected to be found in cities, Bonier said. However the researchers only looked at species native to a particular area, so starlings and sparrows native to Europe but found in North American cities, for example, did not count. Less-common species found in cities included the black-tailed trainbe...

Light guides flight of migratory birds

...vigational system. Last autumn, Rachel Muheim, a postdoctoral associate in biology professor John Phillips' lab at Virginia Tech, captured Savannah sparrows in the Yukon before they headed south. She was able to demonstrate that the birds calibrate their magnetic compass based on polarized light patterns a...