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When Sylvie the pink flamingo learns her color comes from the little pink shrimp she eats, she decides to expand her choices, trying everything under the sun and, unfortunately, overdoing it.

This thought-provoking text offers many insights not generally perceived by ornithologist or botanist and is illustrated in masterly fashion by John Busby's lively drawings.The book's subtitle - A study of an ecological interaction - properly reflects the author's theme but may tend to hide the fact that the relationships between birds and.

\"If you see a bird standing on the side of a tree banging its beak against the trunk, chances are you're watching a woodpecker ... Discover what scientists have learned about woodpeckers, why woodpeckers drill into trees, and the best way to serve ants at your next sleep-over\"--Dust jacket flap.

Supplementary feeding of garden birds generally has benefits for both bird populations and human wellbeing. Birds have excellent colour vision, and show preferences for food items of particular colours, but research into colour preferences associated with artificial feeders is limited to hummingbirds. Here, we investigated the colour preferences of common UK garden birds foraging at seed-dispensing artificial feeders containing identical food. We presented birds simultaneously with an array of eight differently coloured feeders, and recorded the number of visits made to each colour over 370 30-minute observation periods in the winter of 2014/15. In addition, we surveyed visitors to a garden centre and science festival to determine the colour preferences of likely purchasers of seed feeders. Our results suggest that silver and green feeders were visited by higher numbers of individuals of several common garden bird species, while red and yellow feeders received fewer visits. In contrast, people preferred red, yellow, blue and green feeders. We suggest that green feeders may be simultaneously marketable and attractive to foraging birds.

Both the increase in human mobility and climate change contribute to the globalization of vector-borne diseases. Some mosquito species are efficient disease vectors in Europe, thus increasing the risk of epidemic (re)emergence.Bacillus thuringiensis var. israelensis (Bti) is considered as the most efficient larvicide to control mosquito populations with negligible environmental impacts. However, repeated field applications of Bti over many years raise the question of possible long-term effects on non-target invertebrates with putative subsequent alterations of food webs. Environmental effects of Bti have mainly been studied in continental freshwater wetlands. Much less is known for brackish water coastal wetlands. We investigated whether repeated treatments with Bti, applied as VectoBac((R)) WG over seven consecutive years, may affect non-target invertebrate communities in wetlands of the French Atlantic coast. Particular attention was devoted to invertebrates potentially used as food sources by shorebirds and wading birds. Invertebrates were sampled in the water and sediment of control and VectoBac((R))-treated saltmarsh pools between 2006 and 2012. Taxa abundance data were used to calculate community descriptors and to analyse the potential structural changes due to VectoBac((R)) using the principal response curve method and similarity analysis. Physicochemical parameters were measured in the same pools so that homogeneity of the environmental conditions between the control and treated areas could be tested. We demonstrated that long-term use of VectoBac((R)) WG in French Atlantic coastal wetlands had no influence on the temporal evolution of the taxonomic structure and taxa abundance of non-target aquatic invertebrate communities, which is highly driven by abiotic factors. In addition, over the long term, the amount of invertebrates that could be used as food resources by birds is maintained in VectoBac((R))-treated areas.Synthesis and applications. Reduced application rate and targeted spraying of VectoBac((R)) WG in mosquito breeding sites minimize potential environmental impacts of Bacillus thuringiensis var. israelensis (Bti). Even so, surveillance of its possible primary side effects is needed, which requires comparable control and treated areas. Indeed, systematic temporal trends and subtle differences in the range of variation of abiotic factors result in discrepancies between control and treated area in terms of invertebrate abundance, which could be wrongly attributed to VectoBac((R)). Management decisions and mitigation measures may therefore benefit from (i) extending surveillance to a time frame that allows for coverage of the immense temporal variation in taxa abundance and diversity and (ii) the inclusion of environmental variables in the monitoring of non-target animal communities potentially exposed to Bti. Reduced application rate and targeted spraying of VectoBac((R)) WG in mosquito breeding sites minimize potential environmental impacts of Bacillus thuringiensis var. israelensis (Bti). Even so, surveillance of its possible primary side effects is needed, which requires comparable control and treated areas. Indeed, systematic temporal trends and subtle differences in the range of variation of abiotic factors result in discrepancies between control and treated area in terms of invertebrate abundance, which could be wrongly attributed to VectoBac((R)). Management decisions and mitigation measures may therefore benefit from (i) extending surveillance to a time frame that allows for coverage of the immense temporal variation in taxa abundance and diversity and (ii) the inclusion of environmental variables in the monitoring of non-target animal communities potentially exposed to Bti.

More people feed birds and other wildlife than hunt and fish combined. Despite its popularity, many bird-feeding traditions lack scientific data. We examined seed and feeder use by wild birds in the United States and Canada, and how seed use may change by season and geographic region. Between 2005 and 2008, 173 individuals from 38 states and 3 provinces in Canada made 20,077, 45-minute observations at bird feeders, recording 106 species and 1,282,424 bird visits. Of the 10 seed types most commonly used in bird seed blends, 3 are most attractive to birds: black-oil sunflower, medium sunflower chips, and white proso millet. Other seeds such as red milo are less attractive. Chickadees (Poecilespp.), nuthatches (Sittaspp.), and larger finches (Carpodacusspp.) were most abundant at black-oil sunflower, smaller finches (Carduelisspp.) were most abundant at Nyjer®(Wild Bird Feeding Institute, Chicago, IL) and sunflower chips, and sparrows (Spizellaspp.) were most abundant at white proso millet. Bird-feeding traditions have been widely reported in books, magazines, newspaper articles, and websites. These traditions are often conflicting and have not been verified empirically. Studies such as this can be used to develop scientifically based recommendations that can lead to a better bird-feeding experience and that attract fewer species with known negative ecological consequences.

In urbanized areas, many adult birds find sufficient foods to survive, but the anthropogenic foods that are abundant there may be detrimental to nestling growth. In fact, American Crow (Corvus brachyrhynchos) nestlings are smaller in suburban than rural areas, possibly because of nutrient limitation. Here, we seek to identify possible causes of size differences by comparing both size and blood chemistry measures in rural and suburban crow nestlings. We quantified land use in known crow territories and distinguished three distinct environments: suburban-residential, suburban-managed (e.g., golf courses), and rural. We measured nestlings near fledging age in each environment and bled them for determination of unbound plasma calcium, total protein, and corticosterone. We supplemented a subset of broods in suburban-residential and rural areas with a food high in protein and calcium. Rural nestlings were significantly larger than suburban-residential crows and had higher total serum protein. Nestlings in suburban-managed areas were intermediate in size and serum protein but had the lowest plasma calcium levels. Nestling corticosterone levels did not differ significantly among habitats, indicating that, although suburban nestlings may be food-limited, they were not starving. Supplemented nestlings in suburban-residential areas were significantly larger in some growth measures than their unsupplemented counterparts. Unexpectedly, supplemented rural nestlings were significantly smaller than unsupplemented rural ones, suggesting that parents use easily accessible food even when it is nutritionally suboptimal. Our results indicate that nestlings in suburban areas are nutrient restricted, rather than calorie restricted.

Operation Pollinator is an industry led initiative. This biodiversity enhancement programme has enabled better engagement and training of farmers in the delivery of high quality wildlife habitats as part of their national agri-environment schemes (AES). This overview presents findings from farm-scale studies that have shown the type and scale of effects required to deliver such benefits on farm and across the landscape. Significant efforts have already been made to promote biodiversity on farmland, but these results show that to improve the agricultural landscape really, we need to implement more of the best options so as to achieve the scale required to underpin the delivery of ecosystem services. The UK is still transitioning from the old Agricultural Policy Scheme (CAP) scheme, and so it will still be possible to use this type of off-crop mitigation to protect wildlife and ecosystem services in future AES, and this strategy has been described as using \"public money for public goods\" or \"payment for ecosystem services. The EU has proposed that farmers manage 5-7% of the landscape in this way and field margins are a critical mechanism for such farmland biodiversity programmes. The results presented are from a selection of farm scale studies (i.e. with plots of 40 ha - 100 ha) that were large enough to provide indications of the scale of implementation required as targeted AES measures to benefit both farmland birds and pollinators. This review is based on an earlier paper that was presented at a conference on \"Sustainable Intensification\" organised by the Association of Applied Biologists in 2016. Ref: Aspects of Applied Biology 136, 2017 Sustainable Intensification p120-129 Operation Pollinator: Positive action for pollinators and improved biodiversity in arable landscapes, Peter Sutton, Geoff Coates, Belinda Bailey, Marek Nowakowski, Mike Edwards, Robin Blake, Ben Woodcock, Claire Carvell & Richard Pywell.

The UK Farm Scale Evaluations (FSEs) have shown that the use of broad spectrum herbicides on genetically modified herbicide-tolerant (GMHT) crops can have dramatic effects on weed seed production compared to management of conventional varieties. Here, we use FSE data and information on bird diets to determine how GMHT cropping might change the food resources available to farmland birds. More than 60 fields of each of four crops, spring- and winter-sown oilseed rape, beet and maize, were split, one half being sown with a conventional variety, the other with a GMHT variety. Seed rain from weeds known to be important in the diets of 17 granivorous farmland bird species was measured under the two treatments. In beet and spring oilseed rape, rain of weed seeds important in the diets of 16 bird species was significantly reduced in GMHT compared to conventional halves; for no species did it increase. In winter oilseed rape, rain of weed seeds important in the diets of 10 species was significantly reduced in GMHT halves; for only one species did it increase significantly. By contrast, in maize, rain of weed seeds important in the diets of seven species was significantly greater in GMHT halves; for no species was it reduced. Treatment effects for the total weed seed energy available to each bird species were very similar to those for seed rain alone. Measuring the effects on individual bird species was outside the scope of this study. Despite this, these results suggest that should beet, spring and winter rape crops in the UK be largely replaced by GMHT varieties and managed as in the FSEs, this would markedly reduce important food resources for farmland birds, many of which declined during the last quarter of the twentieth century. By contrast, GMHT maize would be beneficial to farmland birds.

Recent findings by Chettih et al. (Cell 187: 1922–1935, 2024) from electrophysiological recordings in the hippocampus of black-capped chickadees shed light on the debate about how food-hoarding Parids may remember their cache sites. When birds retrieve caches, a “bar code” is reactivated, which is very similar to the code generated when the same cache was made. The current evidence suggests that this bar code is only triggered after the bird starts to retrieve the cache, and not in anticipation. This finding is more consistent with cued recall than with free recall of cache locations.