Podcasts about rock pigeons

Summary: Join Kiersten as she talks about the eyes and beaks of the Screamer.   For my hearing impaired followers, a complete transcript of this podcast follows the show notes on Podbean   Show Notes: Ornithology 3rd Edition by Frank B. Gill “The evolutionary relationship among beak shape, mechanical advantage, and feeding ecology in modern birds,” by Guillermo Naval, Jen A. Bright, Jesus Marugan-Lobon, and Emily J. Rayfield. Evolution 73-3;422-435, Society for the Study of Evolution. doi:10.1111/evo.13655 “Bird Eye Color: A Rainbow of Variation, a Spectrum of Explanations,” by Eamon C. Corbett, Robb T. Brumfield, and Brant C. Faircloth. Https://doi.org/10.1111/ibi.13276. Music written and performed by Katherine Camp   Transcript (Piano music plays) Kiersten - This is Ten Things I Like About…a ten minute, ten episode podcast about unknown or misunderstood wildlife. (Piano music stops) Welcome to Ten Things I Like About… I'm Kiersten, your host, and this is a podcast about misunderstood or unknown creatures in nature. Some we'll find right out side our doors and some are continents away but all are fascinating.  This podcast will focus ten, ten minute episodes on different animals and their amazing characteristics. Please join me on this extraordinary journey, you won't regret it. This is the penultimate episode of Screamer and the ninth thing I like about this animal is their eyes and beaks. One of the things that is often overlooked in bird is their eye color, so today we will delve into the variations that exist by looking through the eye of the Screamer. Bird beaks, or bills either is correct, also vary extensively through out the avian family. Beak shape often indicates what type of food the birds eats, but like everything else about the Screamer, things are not always as they seem. Bird eye color varies more than anyone expected. Not many researchers have attempted studying this characteristic and the few that have taken up this research topic and finding more questions than answers. Colors ranged form dark black or brown to vivd emerald green, sapphire blue, scarlet and crimson, turquoise, and even white. There is even a bird with pink eyes. It is absolutely amazing the various hues that birds' eyes contain.  Irises can be one color or more than one. The eyes of Rock Pigeons, one of the most disliked birds around the world, are bicolored starting with a ring of yellow on the outside and red/orange close to the pupil. The Satin Bowerbird has eyes with a vibrant blue ring on the edge of eye with an equally vibrant ring of purple next to the pupil. The Three-streaked Tcharga has a ring of light spots that look like stars set in a dark background giving them some of the most unique bird eyes around.  Eye color in birds can change as a bird matures, for example Osprey eye color changes from red as juveniles to yellow as adults. Sexual dimorphism is also present in some species of birds meaning the female's eyes are a different color than the male's. Seasonal changes in eye color can also happen, for example Brown Pelican eyes change from brown to blue during breeding season. Southern Screamers and Northern Screamers both have brown eyes as adults, while Horned Screamers can have yellow to orange to red eyes as adults. To clarify, I found no research indicating that these birds eye color changes as they age, but I could only find reference to their adult eye color.  There are three things that contribute to the color of a bird's eye, pigments, blood vessels, and structures. These three color options are still being closely studied but certain pigments are responsible for light colors and different pigments are responsible for darker colors. For example, carotenoids are responsible for the orange color of birds in Family Anatidae which includes certain ducks. An increased amount of blood vessels in the eye creates the red eyes of some species.  Why do bird have such varied eye color? The short answer is we just don't know. It could be related to how they find food, where they nest, diurnal versus nocturnal behaviors, communication, or another reason we have not thought of yet. Much more research needs to be done to answer this question, but for now, we can marvel at the extreme variation of bird eye color.  Now, let's take a look at some bird beaks. Just like eye color bird beaks vary tremendously. They can be wide and flat like a duck, tweezer-like similar to a gnatcatcher, chisel-like as the raven's beak, long and thin like a hummingbirds, and deeply curved like the honeycreeper. These are only a few beak shapes found in the avian world. What a bird eats can impact the shape of its beak. Keeping this idea in mind, let's look at the Screamer's beak. Screamers eat leaves, stems, flowers, and roots of aquatic vegetation, so we might assume that their beaks would look at lot like their closer relatives ducks, geese, and swans who also eat similar items. Duck bills are flat and wide with some serration on the inside to help grasp aquatic grasses, but as we know Screamers have a hooked beak reminiscent of a raptor beak.   Hooked beaks help raptors tear apart their prey to facilitate swallowing. If the Screamer eats plant material why does it have a small hooked beak? It has to be hard work to get enough food using a smaller beak to pick up leaves, flowers, and plant roots. It is so much effort for a food item that is low in calories. Once again there is no easy answer to this question, but new study discovered that what a bird eats isn't the only determination of beak size and shape. Turns out we should be thinking about the birds beak in the same manner that we think of our hands. Beaks are not just for eating, they are for manipulating the environment.  Screamers may have hooked beaks to help them build nests, feed their young, or manipulate their environment in ways that we have yet to discover. Once again Screamers are pushing the boundaries of normal avian behaviors. Thank you for joining me for the ninth episode of Screamers. I hope you learned something new, I know I did and my ninth favorite thing about Screamers is their eyes and beaks. If you're enjoying this podcast please recommend me to friends and family and take a moment to give me a rating on whatever platform your listening. It will help me reach more listeners and give the animals I talk about an even better chance at change.  Join me next week for the final episode of Screamers.        (Piano Music plays)  This has been an episode of Ten Things I like About with Kiersten and Company. Original music written and performed by Katherine Camp, piano extraordinaire.

For most birds, wings are for flying. But for Rock Pigeons, they're also for clapping. When the pigeons erupt into flight, some may slap their wings together above their bodies in a “wing clap.” A male Rock Pigeon will also do this when courting. Short-eared Owls have evolved wing-clapping, too. When a male displays to a female or attempts to warn off an intruder, he snaps his wings together below his body in a burst of two to six claps per second, producing a sound that sounds remarkably like applause.More info and transcript at BirdNote.org. Want more BirdNote? Subscribe to our weekly newsletter. Sign up for BirdNote+ to get ad-free listening and other perks. BirdNote is a nonprofit. Your tax-deductible gift makes these shows possible. 

The humble Rock Pigeon can provide some interesting insights into how natural selection is impacted by the urban environment. That is the work of Elizabeth Carlen, a former PhD candidate at Fordham University in New York City and the lead author of a recent article in Evolutionary Applications that looks at genetic connectivity of Rock Pigeons populations in various cities in the Northeast United States. She joins host Nate Swick to talk about the unique issues with studying urban Rock Pigeons.    Also, how geotagged gulls are like Thanksgiving celebrations.  Subscribe to the podcast at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts and please leave a rating or a review if you are so inclined! We appreciate it! And don't forget to join the ABA to support this podcast and the many things we do for birds and birders!        

Join John Bates, Shannon Hackett, RJ Pole, Amanda Marquart, and our guest Jacob Drucker to talk about Rock Pigeons. One of our listeners wrote in and asked us to do an episode on Pigeons, and what a great idea that was! From their navigational abilities, to the impact that humans have had on their evolution, to their color variation, we cover so many interesting topics. You'll gain a new appreciation for these birds, and won't ever look at them the same way. Email us your questions at podcast.birdsofafeather@gmail.com Follow us on Instagram for pictures of the birds we discuss, specimen, and more info! @birds_of_a_feather_podcast

We make it a habit to detail the broad and beautiful spectrum of bird colors, but iridescent feathers are undoubtedly among the most mesmerizing. When sunlight hits the Bufflehead's dark head feathers at the right angle, their colors transform into shades of the rainbow, from deep violet to green and gold. Common Grackles, caught in natural light, gleam gold, green and blue-purple. Starlings, too. And the dull gray Rock Pigeons shuffling around a city park might reveal a glimpse of the electric teal and lavender, shifting shades on their throat.More info and transcript at BirdNote.org. Want more BirdNote? Subscribe to our weekly newsletter. Sign up for BirdNote+ to get ad-free listening and other perks. BirdNote is a nonprofit. Your tax-deductible gift makes these shows possible.

Summary: Ground feeding can be quite controversial. Join Cheryl and Kiersten as they tackle this topic talking about the good and bad, and giving s few tips on doing it responsibly.   For our hearing impaired listeners, a transcript of this podcast follows the show notes on Podbean.   Show Notes: Seed Block Recipe: Bird Seed Block Recipe Ingredients                                                    Tools 5 cups birdseed                                             Large mixing bowl ½ cup Bark Butter (optional)*                     Whisk or Fork 1 cup warm water                                         Spoon 2 packets unflavored gelatin                        Mold-muffin tin No sugar added dried fruit (optional)                                   Directions Arrange dried fruit in tin in desired pattern. (optional) Place warm water in mixing bowl. Sprinkle in gelatin. Whisk until dissolved. Whisk in Bark Butter until mostly dispersed (may have few chunks). Mix in birdseed and more dried fruit if desired. Stir until well combined. Spoon mixture into mold and press. Let sit for 24 hours. Gently flip over mold to release cakes. Let sit another 24 hours to dry completely. Store in dry area. Place on flat, heavy plate or flat paving stone. Enjoy watching your birds! *Please do not substitute peanut butter for Bark Butter. Peanut butter has too much sugar and peanut oils which are not good for the birds. Bark Butter is formulated specifically to give birds balanced high protein nutrition with added calcium. You do not need to add it if you don't like. Background bird song:  Naturescapes Backyard Birds www.naturescapes.com   Our email address, please reach out with comments, questions, or suggestions: thefeathereddesert@gmail.com   Transcript Host Voice: Welcome to the Feathered Desert a podcast all about desert bird feeding in the Southwest region of the United States.  (bird calls and songs play)   Kiersten – Intro: Today's Feathered Desert episode is about a slightly controversial topic and that is ground feeding birds. We're going to talk about should we do it or should we not. It is a very polarized issue especially in the Phoenix Valley where many areas have bans on bird feeding.   Cheryl- First let's start off with a definition of what ground feeding birds is. When we talk about ground feeding birds, we mean putting food on the ground to intentionally attract birds to a specific area. Whether that is loose seed, block seed, or bread (which we do not recommend), if you are placing it on the ground or in a dish on the ground, this is considered ground feeding.   Kiersten – The title of the episode is Ground Feeding: Yah or Nah so let's look at some of the Yah first. When you do ground feed you will get a lot of birds. So, if your goal is to attract birds to your yard, you will definitely do it with ground feeding. The types of birds you can attract in the Phoenix Valley will include House Sparrows, Mourning Doves, Inca Doves, Collared Doves, and Rock Pigeons when you ground feed. If you live in the right area, you could attract Gambel's Quail as well. That's all I've got for the Yah, honestly.   Cheryl – Let's move on to the Nah's, then. The first Nah is that you'll attract a lot of House Sparrows, Mourning Doves, Inca Doves, Collared Doves, and Rock Pigeons when you ground feed.  These are the types of birds that most people don't want to attract to their yards. They are large, eat a lot of food and leave behind a lot of poo.   Kiersten – Speaking of poo that leads us to Nah number two. When you ground feed, you're encouraging birds to walk through their own, and other birds', feces. Birds are actually very clean animals. They do not want to get their feet or feathers soiled because that directly affects their health and ability to fly well. In the wild, they do not walk through their own feces to get to food nor do they overcrowd an area with a limited amount of food. When we offer them a resource that they cannot turn down, such as a large quantity of food in one place it attracts too many birds that will stay too long and come in contact with a lot of poo. Coming in contact with this poo facilitates the transmission of diseases.  Disease transmission is Nah number three. Ground feeding birds can transmit diseases like avian flu, aspergillosis, salmonellosis, avian pox, and mycoplasmal conjunctivitis aka House Finch Eye Disease. These diseases can spread between birds easily at a ground feeding site because it attracts a lot of birds to one area that might not encounter each other in the wild. The other problem it that many of these diseases are zoonotic which means they can be transmitted from birds to people. People with a compromised immune system are especially susceptible.   Cheryl – Nah Number 4 is how much your neighbors are going to hate you. The larger doves and pigeons that you will be attracting to our yard with ground feeding will not just stay in your yard. They will sit on your neighbor's roof, fence, or trees just as they will do in your yard. When they begin to poo in large quantities or make a lot of noise, your neighbors may get a it upset. Also depending on where you live, the city may have a ban on ground feeding birds. If your neighbor complains the city will get involved.  So…our recommendation is to avoid ground feeding. Using feeders that hang, either tube feeders or cylinder feeders, reduces the number of birds that can eat in one area at one time and limits the amount of food they have access to at one time. Birds that forage on the ground will have access to some of this food also because some of the food will fall on the ground as birds eat. When using hanging feeders, you will attract fewer ground feeding birds.   Kiersten – Now we know some of you really like ground feeding, especially when you have quail that visit your yard, so we have a few tips to allow you to continue enjoying your bird feeding hobby while keeping the birds and yourself healthy and keeping your neighbors happy, too.             One thing you can do is use a good quality food with no fillers or shells that attract nothing but doves and pigeons. Something like a No-Mess food, carried by Wild Birds Unlimited or other specialty bird feeding stores, that contains shelled black oil sunflower seeds, peanut chips, and a bit of millet or a No-Mess Quail Blend that is shelled millet, a tiny amount of cracked corn, and some shelled black oil sunflowers. When you use this food only sprinkle a handful at a time, not the entire 20-pound bag at once. This will limit the resource which in turn limits the number of birds that will visit the area at one time, but you'll still get to see the birds that you love to see.   Cheryl - Another way to responsibly ground feed is to use smaller seed blocks than what are typically sold in stores. The ground feeding blocks typically sold are usually about 4 pounds of seed and attract too many birds. Either break down the larger blocks and use only small pieces at a time, or make your own using a recipe with good quality seed, unflavored gelatin, and Bark Butter. We'll include a recipe in our show notes that is easy to make and healthy for the birds! Put your small, muffin sized seed blocks out when you know the quail will be visiting. This will let the quail eat the block and prevent too many doves and pigeons from showing up.   Kiersten – It think we both side on the side of Nah for ground feeding birds. There is definitely more cons than pros, so we will encourage all our listeners to use hanging feeders when feeding the birds. For a good discussion of tube feeders versus cylinder feeders check out our episode by that name. For those of you who just can't give up ground feeding please consider our tips and check out the recipe for seed blocks in our show notes.    

For most birds, wings are for flying. But for Rock Pigeons, they're also for clapping. When the pigeons erupt into flight, some may slap their wings together above their bodies in a “wing clap.” A male Rock Pigeon will also do this when courting. Short-eared Owls, like this one, have evolved wing-clapping, too. When a male displays to a female or attempts to warn off an intruder, he snaps his wings together below his body in a burst of two to six claps per second, producing a sound that sounds remarkably like . . . applause.More info and transcript at BirdNote.org. Want more BirdNote? Subscribe to our weekly newsletter. Sign up for BirdNote+ to get ad-free listening and other perks. BirdNote is a nonprofit. Your tax-deductible gift makes these shows possible.

My guest is Kathe Anderson. She frequently leads field trips in the Phoenix-area and at wildlife festivals across the state. She participates in multiple local survey programs and Christmas Bird Counts, along with authoring articles for local Audubon Society newsletters. We talk about some of her experiences on field trips, counts and she tells us about the Rock Pigeon. For some pictures of Rock Pigeons, please checkout the podcast's Instagram - @lookingatbirdspodcastDuring the episode, Kathe references these two books, both great places to learn more about pigeons:A Pocket Guide to Pigeon Watching: Getting to Know the World's Most Misunderstood Bird by Rosemary MoscoPigeons: The Fascinating Saga of the Most Revered and Reviled Bird by Andrew Blechman

At the end of every month, we host a roundup of recent bird news on the American Birding Podcast. For August we're thrilled to welcome Stephanie Bielke, Jordan Rutter, and Brodie Cass Talbott to the panel to talk about homogenization of bird species, bird habitats in urban landscapes, wild Rock Pigeons, and how birding has changed in our lifetimes.  Link to articles discussed in this episode: As more bird species go extinct, those left may be more alike The strange reason migrating birds are flocking to cities Rare wild ancestors of domestic pigeon found on Scottish islands Here's How Drastically Birding Has Changed Over the Past 50 Years Subscribe to the podcast at Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, and Google Podcasts, and please leave a rating or a review if you are so inclined! We appreciate it!

Pigeons take flight in the morning fog. FILE: (AP Photo/David J. Phillip) Rock pigeons — originally known as rock doves — are native to Europe, introduced to this country by colonists in the early 17th century, and due to their ability to adapt, they've thrived in both urban and natural settings ever since. Domesticated some 5,000 years ago, the birds have been used as messengers, in racing clubs, and their refined homing abilities lend the species to research to this day, helping scientists better understand how birds navigate. But it's the feral animals that we see in the Triad — including Greensboro, says North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission bird conservation biologist Scott Anderson. “If they were declining, I would be very surprised,” says Anderson. “The standard story of declining birds is that they rely on more natural habitat — like wood thrushes, for example. There are sort of forests around — and as we convert those forests to other habitat types, whether they're more urban or suburban, then those birds are losing their habitat. But rock pigeons are kind of the opposite ... they do really well in urban environments.” While recent estimates show a net loss of nearly 3 billion birds in North America since 1970, Anderson says pigeons are not on the list of threatened species. He adds there's little way of confirming if there's been a population decline specifically in Greensboro until the completion of the North Carolina Bird Atlas, where bird enthusiasts monitor and report populations among the roughly 470 species in the state. The five-year project wraps up in 2026, and it's open to the public.   Story does not include AP content #pigeons #rock pigeons #threatened #bird atlas #north carolina wildlife resources commission Environment Normal Tweet

Perhaps more than any bird in North America, Rock Pigeons suffer for their omnipresence and familiarity. But there is more to the humble and ubiquitous species than meets the eye. They are a great opportunity to learn not just about the wonders of birds, but about the interconnectedness of humans and nature. Naturalist and creator of Bird and Moon comics, Rosemary Mosco dives into the weird world of pigeons in her new book, A Pocket Guide to Pigeon Watching: Getting to know the World's Most Misunderstood Bird, and joins the American Birding Podcast to talk all about it. Also, some good new for a lovely birding site in South Texas. Subscribe to the podcast at Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, and Google Podcasts, and please leave a rating or a review if you are so inclined! We appreciate it!

Guest commentators Asterios Kokkinos & Sirancha spark a debate about whether Kylo's helmet is totally excellent or or ridiculous excrement!

Frank, Chris and George from GunsOnPegs are joined by England and British Lions legend Tom Croft, and his good friend Marcus Janssen, of Schoffel and Le Chameau. There's an exclusive product reveal, plenty of rugby chat, and, of course, What's That You're Drinking?

More than ever, birders are turning their attention to the birds immediately outside their front door, and for millions of North Americans there is scarcely a more ubiquitous bird than the feral Rock Pigeon. But that humble Rock Pigeon can provide some interesting insights into how natural selection is impacted by the urban environment. In fact, that is the work of Elizabeth Carlen, a PhD candidate at Fordham University in New York City and the lead author of a recent article in Evolutionary Applications that looks at genetic connectivity of Rock Pigeons populations in various cities in the Northeast United States. She joins host Nate Swick to talk about the unique issues with studying urban Rock Pigeons.   Also, Nate sings the praises of his Fantasy Birding yard squad, and talks about the birding that has kept him sane in a COVID-19 world.  ABA members are eligible for a 15% discount to Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s Birds of the World subscription. Log into your ABA account to get the code.

A surprise song chorus of Eastern Coyote leads the return walk, including Chipping Sparrows, Indigo Bunting, and some rural Rock Pigeons. Credits Recorded, engineered, narrated and created by Rob Porter.Creative Commons music by Scott Buckley – https://www.scottbuckley.com.au/ Creative Commons sounds by Jordan Powell – https://freesound.org/people/Erokia/Support Songbirding by donating to their Tip Jar: https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/songbirdingFind out more at http://songbirding.com

A surprise song chorus of Eastern Coyote leads the return walk, including Chipping Sparrows, Indigo Bunting, and some rural Rock Pigeons. Credits Recorded, engineered, narrated and created by Rob Porter.Creative Commons music by Scott Buckley – https://www.scottbuckley.com.au/ Creative Commons sounds by Jordan Powell – https://freesound.org/people/Erokia/Find out more at http://5khz.songbirding.com

Parental care and begging behaviour in poison frogs, egg attendance in cave-dwelling harvestmen, how Atlantic salmon behaviour protects them from external parasites, and an experiment on foraging success in pit-building antlions.

Parental care and begging behaviour in poison frogs, egg attendance in cave-dwelling harvestmen, how Atlantic salmon behaviour protects them from external parasites, and an experiment on foraging success in pit-building antlions.

In this episode, we are told how bird collisions with vehicles may be affected by experience, we will learn about the brain of tarantulas and whether they show left-right asymmetry, and we will hear about baiting camera traps in the Amazon.

In this episode, we are told how bird collisions with vehicles may be affected by experience, we will learn about the brain of tarantulas and whether they show left-right asymmetry, and we will hear about baiting camera traps in the Amazon.