̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - birds

Birdlife soars on nature-friendly solar farms

plc32 — Thu, 13 Feb 2025 09:46:57 +0000

Birds across Eastern England's arable landscapes are thriving on solar farms managed with nature in mind.

Bird brain from the age of dinosaurs reveals roots of avian intelligence

sc604 — Wed, 13 Nov 2024 14:20:58 +0000

A ‘one of a kind’ fossil discovery could transform our understanding of how the unique brains and intelligence of modern birds evolved, one of the most enduring mysteries of vertebrate evolution.

Highly-sensitive beaks could help albatrosses and penguins find their food

sc604 — Wed, 18 Sep 2024 00:09:46 +0000

Researchers have discovered that seabirds, including penguins and albatrosses, have highly-sensitive regions in their beaks that could be used to help them find food. This is the first time this ability has been identified in seabirds.

Blue and great tits deploy surprisingly powerful memories to find food, a new study shows

ta385 — Wed, 03 Jul 2024 14:58:00 +0000

Blue and great tits recall what they have eaten in the past, where they found the food and when they found it, a new study shows. In the first experiment of its kind to involve wild animals, blue and great tits demonstrated ‘episodic-like’ memory to cope with changes in food availability when foraging. ̽��ֱ��same study may suggest that humans leaving out seeds and nuts for garden birds could be contributing to the evolution of these memory traits.

World’s most threatened seabirds visit remote plastic pollution hotspots

jg533 — Tue, 04 Jul 2023 15:00:00 +0000

̽��ֱ��extensive study assessed the movements of 7,137 individual birds from 77 species of petrel, a group of wide-ranging migratory seabirds including the Northern Fulmar and European Storm-petrel, and the Critically Endangered Newell’s Shearwater.

This is the first time that tracking data for so many seabird species has been combined and overlaid onto global maps of plastic distribution in the oceans.

̽��ֱ��results show that plastic pollution threatens marine life on a scale that transcends national boundaries: a quarter of all plastic exposure risk occurs in the high seas. This is largely linked to gyres - large systems of rotating ocean currents - where vast accumulations of plastics form, fed by waste entering the sea from boats, and from many different countries.

Seabirds often mistake small plastic fragments for food, or ingest plastic that has already been eaten by their prey. This can lead to injury, poisoning and starvation, and petrels are particularly vulnerable because they can’t easily regurgitate the plastic. In the breeding season they often inadvertently feed plastic to their chicks.

Plastics can also contain toxic chemicals that can be harmful to seabirds.

Petrels are an understudied but vulnerable group of marine species, which play a key role in oceanic food webs. ̽��ֱ��breadth of their distribution across the whole ocean makes them important ‘sentinel species’ when assessing the risks of plastic pollution in the marine environment.

“Ocean currents cause big swirling collections of plastic rubbish to accumulate far from land, way out of sight and beyond the jurisdiction of any one country. We found that many species of petrel spend considerable amounts of time feeding around these mid-ocean gyres, which puts them at high risk of ingesting plastic debris,” said Lizzie Pearmain, a PhD student at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge’s Department of Zoology and the British Antarctic Survey, and joint corresponding author of the study.

She added: “When petrels eat plastic, it can get stuck in their stomachs and be fed to their chicks. This leaves less space for food, and can cause internal injuries or release toxins.”

Petrels and other species are already threatened with extinction due to climate change, bycatch, competition with fisheries, and invasive species such as mice and rats on their breeding colonies. ̽��ֱ��researchers say exposure to plastics may reduce the birds’ resilience to these other threats.

̽��ֱ��north-east Pacific, South Atlantic, and the south-west Indian oceans have mid-ocean gyres full of plastic waste, where many species of threatened seabird forage.

“Even species with low exposure risk have been found to eat plastic. This shows that plastic levels in the ocean are a problem for seabirds worldwide, even outside of these high exposure areas,” said Dr Bethany Clark, Seabird Science Officer at BirdLife International and joint corresponding author of the study.

She added: “Many petrel species risk exposure to plastic in the waters of several countries and the high seas during their migrations. Due to ocean currents, this plastic debris often ends up far away from its original source. This highlights the need for international cooperation to tackle plastic pollution in the world’s oceans.”

̽��ֱ��study also found that the Mediterranean Sea and the Black Sea together account for over half of petrels’ global plastic exposure risk. However, only four species of petrel forage in these enclosed, busy areas.

̽��ֱ��study was led by a partnership between the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, BirdLife International and the British Antarctic Survey, in collaboration with Fauna & Flora International, the 5 Gyres Institute, and over 200 seabird researchers in 27 countries.

It was published on 4 July in the journal Nature Communications.

To get their results, the researchers overlaid global location data, taken from tracking devices attached to the birds, onto pre-existing maps of marine plastic distribution. This allowed them to identify the areas on the birds’ migration and foraging journeys where they are most likely to encounter plastics.

Species were given an ‘exposure risk score’ to indicate their risk of encountering plastic during their time at sea. A number of already threatened species scored highly, including the Critically Endangered Balearic Shearwater, which breeds in the Mediterranean, and Newell’s Shearwater, endemic to Hawaii.

Another Endangered species, the Hawaiian Petrel also scored high for plastic exposure risk, as did three species classified by the IUCN as Vulnerable: the Yelkouan Shearwater, which breeds in the Mediterranean; Cook’s Petrel, which breeds in New Zealand, and the Spectacled Petrel, which only breeds on an extinct volcano called Inaccessible Island, part of the Tristan da Cunha archipelago, a UK Overseas Territory.

“While the population-level effects of plastic exposure are not yet known for most species, many petrels and other marine species are already in a precarious situation. Continued exposure to potentially dangerous plastics adds to the pressures,” said Professor Andrea Manica at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge’s Department of Zoology, a co-author of the study.

He added: “This study is a big leap forward in understanding the situation, and our results will feed into conservation work to try and address the threats to birds at sea.”

̽��ֱ��research was funded by the Cambridge Conservation Initiative’s Collaborative Fund for Conservation, sponsored by the Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation, and the Natural Environment Research Council.

Reference

Clark, B.L. et al.: ‘Global assessment of marine plastic exposure risk for oceanic birds.’ Nature Communications, July 2023. DOI: 10.1038/s41467-023-38900-z

Analysis of global tracking data for 77 species of petrel has revealed that a quarter of all plastics potentially encountered in their search for food are in remote international waters – requiring international collaboration to address.

Ocean currents cause big swirling collections of plastic rubbish to accumulate far from land

Lizzie Pearmain

Beth Clark

Northern Fulmar bird in flight

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright © ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified. All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – as here, on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

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̽��ֱ��largest penguin that ever lived

sc604 — Thu, 09 Feb 2023 08:21:23 +0000

Fossil bones from two newly-described penguin species, one of them thought to be the largest penguin to ever live – weighing more than 150 kilograms, more than three times the size of the largest living penguins – have been unearthed in New Zealand.

Bird beak evolved before dinosaur extinction

sc604 — Wed, 30 Nov 2022 15:18:58 +0000

Fossilised fragments of a skeleton, hidden within a rock the size of a grapefruit, have helped upend one of the longest-standing assumptions about the origins of modern birds.

Madingley aviaries saved from closure

cjb250 — Fri, 22 Jul 2022 11:00:05 +0000

We are very grateful to everyone who has contributed to helping the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge secure the future of this important research facility. We welcome any further donations to help us keep the facility open beyond this period.

̽��ֱ��aviaries have been the location of exceptional research led by Professor Nicky Clayton FRS that has transformed our understanding of the behaviour and intelligence of these bird species.

For more information on how you can support the aviaries, please visit our Clayton Corvid Lab fundraising page.

We are delighted to announce that due to a number of generous donations from both members of the public and the scientific community, together with support from the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, we are able to keep the corvid aviaries at Madingley open for a further five years.

Nick Saffell ( ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge)

Jays at Madingley

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright © ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified. All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – as here, on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

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Licence type:

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