Thursday, September 14, 2017
Tuesday, August 1, 2017
Zebra Finch Color Mutations
Zebra Finch Color Mutations
A Photo blog by Mohammad Abdullah
Last week I spent the morning enjoying
two passions. It’s no secret that I love photography, and I’ve loved
birds for as long as I can remember. My brother-in-law breeds zebra
finches. I should point out immediately that I’m not talking about the
bird market in Rai. These are the best of the best. This is a
private ‘collection’ and the guys match different pairs, in order to
achieve wierd and wonderful colours with their off-spring. It’s science
and art – at the same time.
They’re designing a website, and needed
quality shots of their birds. The perfect opportunity for me to try
something new. The studio was a modified cage with, black cardboard for
the background. This dark backdrop is perfect to bring out the
magnificent colours and it means I don’t worry too much about shadows.
If you don’t know these birds, they’re tiny! The size of a finger
beak-to-tail. They’re full of energy and love to hop and fly around.
Their wings remind me of hummingbirds. The shutter speed had to be fast
(1/250 seconds for most shots) which also allowed me to hand-hold the
camera. This allowed me to control the composition better. The
lighting had to be right. I used the window for natural light and
bounced the external flash off the ceiling.
To our untrained eye, these are cute
,colourful, and energetic birds. However to the experts, the one below –
for example – is a masterpiece in-the-making. Apparently…
With the dark background and the
beautiful branch, I wanted to achieve a natural environment with a
studio feel. These very birds that don’t seem to ever stop moving,
look as if they were posing for my camera.
I hope you enjoy the collection. I’m pleased with the results and my laptop background is currently the image above.
BuYousef.net
A Photo blog by Mohammad Abdullah
Saturday, October 1, 2016
Baby Zebra Finch
Bad parenting? Baby zebra finch don’t tolerate it. They look for better role models
Newly hatched chicks whose parents are poor foragers often get stressed from lack of food, leading them to quickly write off mom and dad. Babies a few days old run off in search of better role models -- adults that know what they're doing.
In a two-year study that followed chicks from the moment they were hatched to the moment they were ready to leave the nest a little more than a month later, researchers found that "stressed chicks got away from their parents earlier," said Neeltje Boogert, a biologist at the University of Cambridge who led the research. "They didn't copy their parents behavior."
Dumping clueless parents for better fill-ins is a positive sign for the finch. "If you had a rough start early in life, you might not be doomed," Boogert explained. Nothing in the study suggested this behavior is applicable to other animals, or showed any parallels to humans, Boogert said.
Scientists have long studied the consequences of stress on individual animals to examine its impact on their behaviors, Boogert said. She wanted to take it another step by studying social animals such as the finch to determine how they coped. Boogert and her co-authors were slightly surprised to see youngsters ditch their parents so quickly. The findings were published Thursday in the journal Current Biology.
When food is scarce, or the temperature in a habitat is too cold, resulting from bad parenting, stress hormones are chronically elevated. The consequence in animals, like humans, is often depression, anxiety, panic attacks, sleep disorder and other detrimental impacts.
The question no one had sought to answer, as far as Boogert knew, is how a social animal would compensate. A study authored by Boogert last year said adding stress hormones to the diets of baby finch had a positive effect because they ended up with more friends by adulthood than young birds that were not stressed. But that study didn't tell researchers why stressed chicks were making so many friends.
The study didn't bother with studying how parents react to the put-down of being replaced. Clinical stares were glued on the jittery chicks.
"You can turn to other sources of information," the author said. "I think it is actually a positive message. Instead of being stuck you can change who you're going to follow and make a better life for yourself."
Darryl
Fears has worked at The Washington Post for more than a decade, mostly
as a reporter on the National staff. He currently covers the
environment, focusing on the Chesapeake Bay and issues affecting
wildlife.
Link: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2015/07/23/baby-finch-dont-tolerate-bad-parents-they-find-better-role-models-study-says/
Link: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2015/07/23/baby-finch-dont-tolerate-bad-parents-they-find-better-role-models-study-says/
Friday, September 30, 2016
The Zebra Finch Society – Founded in 1952
From original paintings in acrylics by Alan Coles
showing the variation between the standard colours of quality exhibition cock birds.
Print 1. Normal, Silver, Fawn and Cream
Print 2. Pied, CFW, Lightback and Penguin
Print 1. Normal, Silver, Fawn and Cream
Print 2. Pied, CFW, Lightback and Penguin
Founded in 1952, the ZFS is the oldest national society dedicated solely to Zebra Finches
Offers information on standards, showing, and the club, along with a FAQ section, items for sale, and links.
Link: http://www.zebrafinchsociety.org.uk/
Wednesday, June 1, 2016
Crows form social networks and pass on information to their friends.
Feathered gossips: Researchers find crows pass on information to their friends
- Researchers say crows’ socialising patterns were like 'friendship networks in humans'
- The bird would rather socialise with friends than family
Researchers at a Scottish
university have found that crows are far more social than previously
thought - and could be using their friendships to pass on information.
St Andrews University researchers fitted more than 40 New Caledonian crows with radio tags - and found they all spent much more time socialising with other, unrelated, crows than with their own families.
The crows, from New Caledonia, a remote island in the South Pacific, are renowned for their ability to use tools to get food.
Now the St Andrews team, working with
researchers from Washington University in America, say the creatures
savvyness could stem from their friendliness - suggested that when they
meet up they could be passing on tips to each other.
Project leader Dr Christian Rutz, of school of biology at St Andrews, said the crows’ socialising patterns were like 'friendship networks in humans'.
He said: “We all know how fast fads can spread, whether it is fashion or music preferences, or new consumer products.
'But, importantly, successful diffusion depends on people’s ability to observe and copy other individuals’ choices and behaviours.
'This is why we wanted to know how often crows meet other crows in the course of a week.
'Whenever two marked crows get close to each other, their tags exchange radio-signals.
'It is as if the birds are swapping business cards when they meet.
'The miniature tracking devices, each the weight of a £2 coin, were attached to the birds as back-packs which can both transmit and receive radio-signals, unlike conventional wildlife radio-tags.'
The back-packs allowed researchers to study the birds’ social relationships and revealed a 'surprising' amount of contacts.
The study’s main aim is to understand how information on using tools to find food may be shared in wild crow populations.
The social network revealed a highly interconnected population, in which most birds associated with non-family members within just a few days.
Researchers believe this creates potential for social information to be passed around in crow populations.
The birds come from New Caledonia, a remote island in the South Pacific where the study’s fieldwork took place.
The crows are known for using tools to get to deadwood prey and vegetation.
Scientists have suggested
that this 'sophisticated tool-use behaviour' may be the outcome of the
birds passing information to each other.
Dr John Burt and Professor Brian Otis from Washington University invented the tracking technology used by the study, called 'Encounternet'.
Dr Burt said: 'It was fantastic for us to see these tags being deployed on wild animals.
'The technology worked beautifully and generated some fascinating new insights into the biology of these remarkable birds.'
This is the first time that tags like this have been attached to wild birds.
They have been used previously on larger animals such as zebras, cattle or rabbits but until now, tags were far too heavy for deployment on birds.
For the study, 41 crows were fitted with the tags, with each unit weighing only some nine grams.
The units were mounted onto the birds as backpacks, using harnesses that degrade over time.
The study was funded by the UK’s Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC).
A report of the research is published in the academic journal Current Biology.
St Andrews University researchers fitted more than 40 New Caledonian crows with radio tags - and found they all spent much more time socialising with other, unrelated, crows than with their own families.
The crows, from New Caledonia, a remote island in the South Pacific, are renowned for their ability to use tools to get food.
Researchers who gave crows backpacks to track
their social interaction have found they have human-like networks of
friends, and pass information among each other.
Project leader Dr Christian Rutz, of school of biology at St Andrews, said the crows’ socialising patterns were like 'friendship networks in humans'.
He said: “We all know how fast fads can spread, whether it is fashion or music preferences, or new consumer products.
'But, importantly, successful diffusion depends on people’s ability to observe and copy other individuals’ choices and behaviours.
'This is why we wanted to know how often crows meet other crows in the course of a week.
'Whenever two marked crows get close to each other, their tags exchange radio-signals.
RELATED ARTICLES
'The miniature tracking devices, each the weight of a £2 coin, were attached to the birds as back-packs which can both transmit and receive radio-signals, unlike conventional wildlife radio-tags.'
The back-packs allowed researchers to study the birds’ social relationships and revealed a 'surprising' amount of contacts.
The study’s main aim is to understand how information on using tools to find food may be shared in wild crow populations.
The social network revealed a highly interconnected population, in which most birds associated with non-family members within just a few days.
Researchers believe this creates potential for social information to be passed around in crow populations.
The birds come from New Caledonia, a remote island in the South Pacific where the study’s fieldwork took place.
The crows are known for using tools to get to deadwood prey and vegetation.
Crows have previously been seen using tools. Now, it appears they form social networks and pass on information to their friends.
Dr John Burt and Professor Brian Otis from Washington University invented the tracking technology used by the study, called 'Encounternet'.
Dr Burt said: 'It was fantastic for us to see these tags being deployed on wild animals.
'The technology worked beautifully and generated some fascinating new insights into the biology of these remarkable birds.'
This is the first time that tags like this have been attached to wild birds.
They have been used previously on larger animals such as zebras, cattle or rabbits but until now, tags were far too heavy for deployment on birds.
For the study, 41 crows were fitted with the tags, with each unit weighing only some nine grams.
The units were mounted onto the birds as backpacks, using harnesses that degrade over time.
The study was funded by the UK’s Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC).
A report of the research is published in the academic journal Current Biology.
Wednesday, May 25, 2016
Wednesday, April 27, 2016
Enthralling new books on bird behaviour
Male bowerbirds’ creations look like
little art galleries — built to impress the females
Link: http://www.spectator.co.uk/2016/04/which-came-first-the-bowerbird-or-the-egg/
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