SCFZ

The Kingdom of Italy celebrates half a century of life.
Turin rejoices as today.
King arrived in a carriage,
together with a beautiful, feathered, and benevolent Queen.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... e-research

Silver has no shine for magpies

The myths around the bird’s attraction to all things shiny have no basis in reality, research shows



A magpie is unlikely to take a shine to your jewellery and might even be frightened by it, research has shown.

In a series of experiments, scientists debunked the common myth that magpies are inveterate trinket thieves. They found that far from being attracted to shiny objects, the black and white birds tended to avoid them.

The tests were carried out at the University of Exeter both on wild magpies and a group of the birds housed at a rescue centre.

Under carefully controlled conditions, they were exposed to both shiny and non-shiny items and their reactions recorded.

Lead researcher Dr Toni Shephard, from the university’s centre for research in animal behaviour, said: “We did not find evidence of an unconditional attraction to shiny objects in magpies. Instead, all objects prompted responses indicating neophobia – fear of new things – in the birds.

“We suggest that humans notice when magpies occasionally pick up shiny objects because they believe the birds find them attractive, while it goes unnoticed when magpies interact with less eye-catching items. It seems likely, therefore, that the folklore surrounding them is a result of cultural generalisation and anecdotes rather than evidence.”

The test objects used in the study were shiny metal screws, small foil rings and a small rectangular piece of aluminium foil. Half the screws and rings were painted matt blue while the rest retained their original silvery shine.

In the experiments shiny and non-shiny objects were placed on the ground 30 centimetres from a pile of food in the form of nuts. Wild magpies only made contact with a shiny object twice in 64 tests, the researchers reported in the journal Animal Cognition. On both occasions, a silver ring was picked up and immediately discarded.

Both the shiny and blue objects were either ignored or avoided. Often, the magpies exhibited wary behaviour by feeding less when the items were nearby. During the study with captive birds, no contact was made with any of the objects.

Co-author Dr Natalie Hempel de Ibarra, also from the University of Exeter, said: “Surprisingly little research has investigated the cognitive mechanisms of magpie behaviour. Similarly to other large-brained members of the crow family with complex social systems, magpies are capable of sophisticated mental feats, such as mirror self-recognition, retrieval of hidden objects and remembering where and when they have hoarded what food item.

“Here we demonstrate once more that they are smart – instead of being compulsively drawn towards shiny objects, magpies decide to keep a safe distance when these objects are novel and unexpected.”

The magpie’s tarnished reputation runs through folklore, literature and music. Rossini’s opera The Thieving Magpie, first performed in 1817, tells the story of a servant girl wrongly accused of silver thefts that were committed by a magpie.

One episode of the Tintin comic series, The Castafiore Emerald, has a similar plot with a magpie making off with a prized emerald. Magpies have traditionally been regarded as bearers of bad omens and associated with the devil.

In Scotland, a magpie near the window of a house is said to be a harbinger of death.

Two Christmas cards from the 1880s which feature beautifully drawn images of dead birds and which wish their recipients “May yours be a Joyful Christmas” and “A Loving Christmas Greeting”. A picture of a dead robin or wren (both bird species were beloved and considered sacred in British folklore) were “bound to elicit Victorian sympathy and may reference common stories of poor children freezing to death at Christmas”. Was this a genuine attempt to raise awareness of social injustice and change society or would the person who received such a card really just smugly consider themselves better off than a homeless orphan?

In one of the most well-preserved dinosaur embryos ever found, a baby dinosaur curled its back and tucked its head in a position that is similar to modern birds before they hatch, a discovery that scientists say could shed new light on how dinosaurs developed in their early stages.

A peer-reviewed article, published Tuesday by iScience, said the dinosaur had its head placed between its legs and under its body, with its back bent along the eggshell. The research team said this position, previously not found in any non-avian dinosaurs, is comparable to pre-tucking in a bird embryo like that of a chicken.

By tucking their heads under their wings in the days before hatching, chicks can stabilize them and have a better chance of surviving the birthing process, the paper explained, adding that this behavior was thought to be unique in birds but now may be traced to dinosaurs.

https://soundcloud.com/sonic_kitchen/wh ... al_sharing
YOU CLUCKED WITH THE WRONG CHICKEN, MOTHERDUCKER!
This is a glockatrice - a half-chicken, half-gun creature. Its gaze can turn normal flesh into bullet-wounded flesh, and its roar is said to be like a small, precise explosion. It tends to jam when it gets overly excited. Throw it some granola bars and it'll be your soulmate.

twodeadmagpies wrote: ↑Sat Jan 01, 2022 8:01 pm have we posted the talking starlings vids before? they're great mimics! and people just poo poo them because they're so common...amazing little things

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/315 ... s-michelet

How the Author was led to the Study of Nature.
To my faithful friend, the Public, who has listened to me for so long a period without disfavour, I owe a confession of the peculiar circumstances which, while not leading me altogether astray from history, have induced me to devote myself to the natural sciences.
The book which I now publish may be described as the offspring of the domestic circle and the home fireside. It is from our hours of rest, our afternoon conversations, our winter readings, our summer gossips, that this book, if it be a book, has been gradually evolved.
Two studious persons, naturally reunited after a day's toil, put together their gleanings, and refreshed their hearts by this closing evening feast.
Am I saying that we have had no other assistance? To make such a statement would be unjust, ungrateful. The domesticated swallows which lodged under our roof mingled in our conversation. The homely robin, fluttering around me, interjected his tender notes, and sometimes the nightingale suspended it by her solemn music.
The burden of the time, life, labour, the violent fluctuations of our era, the dispersion of a world of intelligence in which we lived, and to which nothing has succeeded, weighed heavily upon me. The arduous toils of history found occasional relaxation in friendly instruction. These pauses, however, are only periods of silence. Where shall we seek repose or moral invigoration, if not of nature?
The mighty eighteenth century, which included a thousand years of struggle, rested at its setting on the amiable and consoling, though scientifically feeble book of Bernardin de St. Pierre. It ended with that pathetic speech of Ramond's: "So many irreparable losses lamented in the bosom of nature!"
We, whatever we had lost, asked of solitude something more than tears, something more than the dittany which softens wounded hearts. We sought in it a panacea for continual progress, a draught from inexhaustible fountains, a new strength, and—wings.
This work, whatever its character, possesses at least the distinction of having entered upon life under the usual conditions of existence. It results from the intimate communion of two souls; and is in all things itself uniform and harmonious because the offspring of two different principles.
Of the two souls to which it owes its existence, one was the more powerfully attracted to natural studies by the fact that, in a certain sense, it had been born among them, and had ever preserved their fragrance and sweet savour. The other was so much the more strongly impelled towards them because it had always been separated by circumstances, and detained in the rugged ways of human history.

HOW THE AUTHOR WAS LED TO THE STUDY OF NATURE,
PART FIRST.
THE EGG,
THE POLE—AQUATIC BIRDS,
THE WING,
THE FIRST FLUTTERINGS OF THE WING,
TRIUMPH OF THE WING—THE FRIGATE BIRD,
THE SHORES—DECAY OF CERTAIN SPECIES,
THE HERONRIES OF AMERICA—WILSON, THE ORNITHOLOGIST,
THE COMBAT—THE TROPICAL REGIONS,
PURIFICATION,
DEATH—BIRDS OF PREY (THE RAPTORES),
PART SECOND.
THE LIGHT—THE NIGHT,
STORM AND WINTER—MIGRATIONS,
MIGRATIONS, Continued—THE SWALLOW,
HARMONIES OF THE TEMPERATE ZONE,
THE BIRD AS THE LABOURER OF MAN,
LABOUR—THE WOODPECKER,
THE SONG,
THE NEST—ARCHITECTURE OF BIRDS,
THE COMMUNITIES OF BIRDS—ESSAYS AT A REPUBLIC,
EDUCATION,
THE NIGHTINGALE—ART AND THE INFINITE,
THE NIGHTINGALE, Continued,
CONCLUSION,
ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES

nrh wrote: ↑Sun Jan 02, 2022 12:33 am they're an invasive species in the us

neon ovalis wrote: ↑Sun Jan 02, 2022 12:18 am obviously, my folks were (right from the start) better at making documentaries than genre films (assuming this flick is not a local early attempt at horror). tho, initially, it plays a bit like a geese passion play (one of the intertitles saying "poslední koupel" = the last bath).