My Science School

Spotting a white-throated needletail swift is not easy. They do not hop about on the ground for one thing. In fact they never land on the ground if they can help it. And they are one of the fastest birds in the sky, reaching a top speed of around 170 km per hour! So it may be difficult to get a good look at them as they whizz past.

This greyish brown swift has a white throat patch, as well as a whitish patch on its back. It measures around 21 cm and weighs 120 grams. It is found in Australia, Central Asia, Sweden, Norway, Great Britain and Siberia. It is called needletail due to its tapering tail, which is not forked as with other swifts.

It builds its nest in rock crevices, cliffs or high up in tall trees. It avoids hunting on the ground and catches its food on the wing. It eats insects like beetles, flies, bees, locusts, grasshoppers, cicadas and moths. The needletail has very short legs which it uses only for clinging to vertical surfaces.

It constructs a cup-like nest made of twigs and straw stuck together with its own saliva. The female lays 2 to 7 eggs and both parents incubate the eggs for a period of around 23 days. This bird was first described by the English ornithologist John Latham in 1801.

It is listed under ‘Least Concern’ on the IUCN Red List.

Picture Credit : Google 

The ultimate speed king on the planet, with no competitors on land, water or the air, is the peregrine falcon. This superbird achieves an unbelievable speed of 321 km/h during its famous downward ‘stoop’ (dive) to catch prey.

This large-sized falcon has a blue-grey back, barred underparts and a black head. It hunts birds like pigeons, ducks, songbirds and gulls.

It has special tubercles in its nostrils to guide the air and prevent damage to its lungs during a dive. Its vision is 8 times better than a human's and it has a third eyelid to protect its eyes during those super-fast dives. It swoops down in a curve to decrease drag and strikes its prey mid-flight, knocking it out!

The word peregrine means wanderer or pilgrim. These birds may fly around 30,000 kilometres every year from Europe to Africa during winter.

The peregrine falcon has faced many unforeseen threats over the years. One of the birds it likes to hunt is the pigeon. However, during the First World War thousands of peregrines were killed because they were a threat to messenger pigeons carrying important military messages to and fro.

A large number also perished due to the rampant use of the pesticide DDT, which entered their systems through food. This pesticide made peregrine eggs brittle and a huge number of eggs broke, depleting their numbers drastically. After many countries banned the use of DDT, population figures have been picking up. They are currently listed under ‘Least Concern’ in the IUCN List.

Picture Credit : Google

When we think of birds, we perhaps think of their resplendent colours. But did you know that not all birds are colourful? In fact, it was presumed for long that how colourful birds were depended a lot on the region they lived in. A recent study has confirmed this.

The research has shown that "tropical species of songbirds are indeed more colourful than their non-tropical counterparts". The study analysed over 4,500 species of songbirds (also known as the passerines) globally from the collection at the UK's Natural History Museum. Songbirds were chosen because "they represent around 60 per cent of all bird species". The study involved cutting-edge computer technology to analyse the colours and intensity in the plumage of birds. The "colourfulness score" thus obtained for birds across the globe revealed that it "is generally highest at the Equator and decreases with increasing latitude towards the poles". Birds in the tropics (regions of the Earth around the Equator), showed more colours than those living in other regions, north or south. Also, though in certain cases males and females look different, both are more colourful in the tropics than in other places. So, what exactly is causing this?

It is said that several factors, including climate, food, and the amount of light in their habitat, impact how colourful bird plumage is. The study showed that the most number of colourful species of birds were from rainforests and those that consumed fruits and floral nectar. "And there was also a positive association between colourfulness and the diversity of the bird communities." The variety and population of songbird species are higher in the regions closer to the Equator than others. So the study suggests that the colourfulness could be the result of evolution for identification-"this enhanced colourfulness may help them to distinguish themselves from all the other birds in their rich tropical communities".

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Weighing as little as two grams, the bee hummingbird is the smallest bird in the world and it produces the smallest-known egg weighing half a gram. The smallest egg on record, according to the Guinness Book of World Records, was less than 10 mm long and it was laid by a Vervain hummingbird native to Jamaica in 1998. Its appearance and flight style rivals that of some insects, especially bees, for which it gets its name. The Bee Hummingbird is also the bird with the smallest nest in the world, at only 1 inch in diameter and depth. Their eggs are also the smallest bird eggs in the world, measuring a mere 12.5 x 8.5 mm, the size of a coffee bean. A Bee Hummingbird egg is only half the weight of a standard paper clip!

The Bee Hummingbird is a tiny gem and a super brilliant one at that. The males are adorned with a vibrant crown and gorget of fiery reds, oranges and yellows. Its royal-blue back, wings and sides contrast nicely with its shimmering gorget. Females lack the iridescent crown and gorget, but still maintain the beautiful blue back and wings.  

Like other hummingbirds, it feeds on nectar and insects. The Bee Hummingbird is a strong flier and very active, visiting up to 1500 flowers a day! It has a fast metabolism, and consumes up to half its own body weight in nectar a day! As it feeds, it picks up pollen on its long, thin bill and transfers it to other flowers, aiding in plant pollination. Endemic to Cuba, the Bee Hummingbird has a patchy distribution on the island. It is most frequently encountered on the extreme western end and in the Zapata Peninsula.

Credit : Whitehawk

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Have you watched a peacock dance? It is a beautiful sight to behold. We have heard people say that a peacock dance is an indicator of rain. How true is this? Sadly, the reality is not as cool as it sounds. The male of the Indian peafowl species is called the peacock. (The female is called the peahen and the offspring, the peachick). The stunning pattern on their metallic blue-green covert feathers (called a train), and the eye spots are something unique to the Asiatic species. (The Congo peacocks do not have the train nor the eyespots).

A peacock opens its train and dances to attract a peahen. It is part of the courtship ritual, where the male fans his tail displaying the eyespots. Peacocks moult (shed) their train at the end of every breeding season. So, what is the link between rain and their dance? Peafowls breed during the wet or rainy season. Hence, it is only a coincidence if you watched a peacock dance and you witnessed a rain soon after.

Picture Credit : Google 

A  Lyrebird is a ground-dwelling bird, native to Australia. It has strong legs and feet and short rounded wings.  Its plumage is a mix of brown, white and black. It is a poor flier and rarely take to the air except for periods of downhill gliding. The males have a strikingly beautiful tail, which they fan out as part of courtship display.

A  Lyrebird is best known for its ability to mimic natural and artificial sounds from the environment. Its songs may last as long as 20 minutes and It make different sounds for different requirements.

Its diet consists of cockroaches, spiders and beetles. It is a solitary, shy bird.

Female Lyrebirds build dome-shaped nests made of sticks. They build these cosy structures on the ground, in tree stumps, in tree ferns or even in caves, and fill them with fern fronds, feathers, moss and roots – a particularly talented lyrebird could even put Grand Designs homeowners to shame.

Once they’ve built and decorated their home, they’ll generally lay one egg, which hatches in six weeks. The young lyrebird will then live in the nest for the first 6-10 weeks of its life.

There’s also a smaller, darker lyrebird that lacks the elegant lyre-shaped tail feathers of the superb lyrebird. This is the Albert’s lyrebird – less superb, but equally amazing – the Albert’s lyrebird is found in only a small region of south-east Queensland and far northeast New South Wales. With brown upper body plumage and a rich chestnut colour below, they are roughly the size of a pheasant.

Threats to the species include danger from vehicle collisions, domestic animal, and foxes. Having survived the devastation of the 2019-20 bushfires by living in one of the Unburnt Six forest areas on our east coast, lyrebirds are still vulnerable to threats such as land-clearing and logging and need our help to thrive and stay as superb as we know they are.

Credit : WWF Australia 

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Alpine swift is a species of swift found in the mountains from southern Europe to the Himalayas. It is a large bird, with broad wings and a short. forked tail. Upper parts, head, tail and wings are olive brown, while its underbelly is white. It has a tiny beak but an extremely large mouth which helps in catching flying insects.  Its diet consists of bees, wasps, lacewings, cicadas, aphids and butterflies. While in flight, It look like a boomerang.

Alpine swift known for graceful glides, swoops and soars. It can stay aloft without touching the ground for an extraordinarily long period of time. The Alpine swift has legs that are too short when compared to the body and won’t allow him to be able to take off from the ground, but it’s an excellent climber, capable of getting up a wall to the ideal height for gliding and flying. Six months of uninterrupted flight, never landing: this is how the Alpine swifts spend the entire wintering period in West Africa, it even manages to enjoy some form of sleep while continuing to soar in the air. Its flight can be fast and straight but also with rapid direction changes, usually carried out to look for the food it catches in flight. 

Alpine swift build their nests in colonies in cliff hole or cave, laying two or three eggs and return to the same site year after year, and pair for life. Young swifts in the nest can drop their body temperature and become torpid if bad weather prevents their parents from bringing back food.

Credit : Avi Birds 

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Hawk is a medium-sized ,strong, powerful birds. Their feet are equipped with sharp, curved talons for capturing prey, and their strong beaks are hooked for biting and tearing flesh. Swift fliers, some hawks can attain speeds of over 150 mph when diving. There are  around 270 species of hawks .Generally, hawks kill their prey with their claws, unlike the falcons, which catch prey with the claws but kill with a blow of their beak. However, despite their fierce reputations, some hawks are quiet and gentle. Hawks have many foraging techniques, but the most typical in their pursuit of prey is raking, or swiftly following the animal’s efforts to escape. Once the hawk has secured the prey with its powerful talons, the bird dismembers it with its sharply pointed strong beak.

Hawks are unusual among birds in that the female is generally larger than her mate. In some species, this difference—called sexual dimorphism—can be as great as the female being twice the size of the males, as in the accipiters. So many other factors correlate with sexual dimorphism, it is difficult to say which is the major contributing factor. Hawks generally mate for life, and are strongly attached to their nesting territory; one pair of red-shouldered hawks (and their offspring) used the same area for 45 years. Not only do they have acute vision but they are very intelligent. A Canadian scientist devised a method of measuring avian IQ in terms of their innovation in feeding habits, and hawks were named among the most intelligent birds based on this scale.

Credit : Science.jrank

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Marabou stork is a large African bird of the  stork family,  The marabou is the largest stork, 150 cm (5 feet) tall with a wingspread of 2.6 m (8 1/2 feet). Mainly gray and white, it has a naked pinkish head and neck, a pendant, reddish, inflatable throat pouch, and a straight, heavy bill. Marabous eat carrion, often feeding with vultures, which they dominate.

Storks range from about 60 cm to more than 150 cm (2 to 5 feet) in height. All or part of the head and upper neck may be bare of feathers and brightly coloured. Storks are voiceless or nearly so, for lack of a fully developed syrinx (vocal organ), but some of them clatter their bills loudly when excited. They fly, alternately flapping and soaring, with neck outstretched and legs trailing. Storks occur mainly in Africa, Asia, and Europe. One species, the black-necked stork, also occurs in Australia. Three New World species occur between Florida and Argentina.

Credit : Britannica

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Plants and trees are very important for the world to keep going because they provide food and shelter, among others, to almost all life forms, including humans. Considering the utter number of plants and trees around us, it is clear humans do not and cannot plant all of them. So, who's doing that important work? Pollinators! Several kinds of insects, birds, and animals are pollinators. As they move, unknowingly they carry the powdery substance called pollen from the male part of a plant's flower to the female part, and help plants reproduce. Because of the crucial work they do, a lot of research has gone into studying pollinators. Among such research, most have focussed on what are called diurnal pollinators - creatures that are active during the day (such as bees and butterflies). Apparently, not much attention has been paid to nocturnal pollinators - those active at night (such as moths). (It is good to remember that not all moths are nocturnal. A few of them are day fliers.) And a recent research appears to not only address that lacuna but also provide startling insight into how invaluable nocturnal pollinators are.

The study has revealed that moths play an indispensable role in the pollination occurring in than 90 species of moths could be "potential pollinators of 21 plant families in Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh". The 90-odd moth species make up nearly 65% of those in the region, and "geometridae (geometer moths). and Erebidae (erebid moths, tiger moths, lichen moths, among others) turned out to be the most important moth families for pollen transportation in the Himalayan region".

While the discovery of the role of moths in the region's pollination is worthy in itself. the study also establishes something else that moths are more picky than previously thought. The pollen they carry revealed their preference for certain types of plants, challenging the idea that these creatures of the night are usually generalists, meaning they may have no specific preference when it comes to food plants.

While factors such as season and altitude already impact the role of moths as potential pollinators, the fact that they choose certain plants over others should signal the need to protect these plants too. And that would go a long way in keeping the fragile Himalayan ecosystem intact.

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The Antpitta avis canis Ridgley is a bird that barks like a dog. The nearly-flightless insect eater has long bluish legs, a grey belly and brown back, and its black head bears a prominent white patch across the face. Discovered by ornithologist Robert S. Ridgley in the Andes in Ecuador in June 1998, the bird is the size of a duck, and is one of the largest birds discovered in the 20th century.

Thirty of these long-legged, black-and-white barking birds were found. It apparently had gone undetected because it lives in remote parts and, of course, doesn’t sing. The size of a duck, it is one of the largest birds discovered in the last 50 years.

There are also dogs that do not bark! The basenji, smallish dog with a silky copper coat, does not bark. Instead, it yodels when it gets excited. Wild dogs like the African Wild Dog also do not bark.

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        The takahe was once thought to be extinct. By 1898, ornithologists had come to the conclusion that the last bird had died due to introduced predators and grazing animals. However, in 1948, a small Population of the bird was discovered in a remote valley in New Zealand.

       The takahe bird is also known as the South Island takahe or notornis. It is a flightless bird, endemic to New Zealand. The Colour of the bird is mainly purple-blue with a greenish tinge on its back and inner wings. It has a broad and powerful bill. Its length is about 63 centimetres and weighs about 2.7 kilograms. Today the species is under Close watch and is managed by the New Zealand Department of Conservation.

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       Commonly spotted India, the Himalayan monal is the national bird of Nepal.

       The bird has a blue back and green neck. It has other colours too, such as orange and yellow, all shining in metallic splendour.

       The male bird of the Himalayan monal is about 70 centimetres long. The female tends to be shorter in length. Their plumage is not as brilliant as the males; they are streaky brown in appearance.

       As their name suggests these birds are found in the Himalayas especially in the open forests and meadows. They can live in high altitudes even up a height of 4500 metres. They are well adapted to the cold climate and snow.

       Their legs are equipped to dig into the ground through snow. They eat roots, seeds, berries, shoots and invertebrates.

Picture Credit : Google