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A New Way Global Warming Kills Birds

10,000 Birds

A new research project using Zebra Finches in semi-wild conditions indicates that for some bird populations a certain aspect of climate change may have a negative effect on the viability of populations by causing increased mortality in a subtle but significant way. The experiment was run over several years with several hundred birds.

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“Understanding Animal Behaviour” by Rory Putman

10,000 Birds

Described in the “Territoriality and aggression” chapter, this is a sublime example of behaviour from the “Understanding Animal Behaviour” by Rory Putman, an Emeritus Chair in Behavioural and Environmental Biology at Manchester Metropolitan University, UK. “Understanding Animal Behaviour” by Rory Putman.

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Birding – An Extreme Sport

10,000 Birds

It has all Big Five animals and a whole lot of other grumpy mammals. Before leaving the safety of the car I heeded the park’s advice and checked for animal tracks belonging to any biting, gnawing, mauling, trampling, stabbing or disembowelling species. Having learned from my Namibian experience I walked away briskly.

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Madikwe; Paradise Restored

10,000 Birds

In some cases someone was blown away by the scenery and thought “this needs saving” In some cases someone thought “there seems to be a lot of animals here, let’s keep things that way” Still others happen because no one had done anything with the land yet and no one wanted the land anyway.

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Tanzania – Africa at its best

10,000 Birds

Nowhere else in Africa do the preconceived ideas of the continent really exist in such living detail; tall, red-robed Maasai herding their skinny cattle, endless grasslands studded with flat-topped Acacia trees and grazed by herds of zebras and wildebeest, and dramatic volcanic calderas brimming with big game and fierce predators!

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Bird Song and Parallel Evolution: learning from our feathered friends

10,000 Birds

These bird songs have two aspects, and I oversimplify but not excessively so: A genetically inherited template, usually specific to the song-producing sex, and a learned song that consists of the template shaped by experience as a developing bird hears the adult version of its own song. The top two are individuals with normal song.

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Africa’s Big Five and Little Five

10,000 Birds

They are not necessarily the biggest African animals, but represented those that were considered a real hunter’s worthy prey or “game” – the African Elephant, Cape Buffalo, Black Rhinoceros, Leopard and king of the jungle, the Lion (which of course doesn’t inhabit jungle but savanna!).

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