Bird thats still getting wise to the world

Not for nothing are they known as silent killers. If their excellent night vision, even sharper hearing and razor-sharp talons were not formidable enough, owls have evolved another weapon that enhances their element of surprise over their victims, their ability to fly silently. Unlike most birds whose flight feathers have straight edges which make a sound as they move through the air, those of the owl have comb-like, fringed edges that interlock to form one continuous edge, eliminating the rustling sound as they move. Owls have a success rate of around 85%, a return that many other birds of prey would kill for.

As one of our most easily recognisable indigenous birds, if only by dint of its distinctive hooting sound that punctuates the nocturnal soundscape, the owl unsurprisingly features strongly in our native folklore. What is more surprising is that, at least from the Middle Ages until the early 19
th
century, it had a sinister reputation as a bird of darkness, one associated with death. Many thought that the screech of an owl flying past a sick person’s window meant their imminent death. In
Julius Caesar
(Act 1: Scene 3), Shakespeare cites the daytime hooting of an

Seven birds and their mysterious folklore


Stone Age communities sometimes exposed their dead instead of burying them and ravens picked the bones clean, much like the few sky burial practices left in places such as the Tibet, Mongolia and Bhutan to this day. Mostly, ravens are now seen as more of an occasional nuisance, preying on livestock and sometimes pecking dead animals.

However, ravens are one of the most intelligent of all birds, and as a talking bird, the raven also represents prophecy and insight, connecting the material and spiritual worlds. In Greek mythology, ravens were messengers of Apollo, god of prophecy, to the mortal world and a symbol of bad luck. Apollo is said to have sent a white raven to spy on his lover, Coronis. When the raven brought back the news that Coronis had been unfaithful to him, Apollo turned the raven’s feathers black in fury – which is apparently why all ravens are black today.

This myth of ravens as messengers is still prevelant today, most notably in
Game of Thrones
, where ravens are used as messenger birds, as well as guiding Bran Stark on his quest.

Nevertheless, ravens are more often regarded as harbingers of doom, most






Older cranes know the way



Whooping cranes will soon be leaving their summer nesting grounds in Wisconsin and Alberta, Canada, and flying south to Texas and Florida for the winter, journeys of more than 1,000 miles. Their migration is not the longest trip that birds make (Arctic Terns travel from the Arctic to the Antarctic), but it is lengthy enough that we puzzle about how migratory birds—especially the youngest ones—manage to do it.

Is the map somehow encoded in their genes? Or do they learn the route? The question has been called one of nature’s greatest mysteries.

But it’s a mystery no more. In
Science
, a team of scientists reports that whooping cranes—and by extension all birds that migrate—do indeed learn their migratory routes. In their first years, young whoopers are like apprentices. They travel with older, more experienced birds that know the way.

Such a discovery might seem obvious to most of us, but a gut instinct is not the same thing as proof. Without proof--that is, solid data--to verify what you think is happening in another animal’s mind, you’ll always face a phalanx of skeptics who prefer to regard animals as hardwired zombies.





Whooping cranes


Jackdaws are pleasing to watch. Solemnly and methodically, they stalk the lawn, unhurried in their search patterns, neat and tidy and dignified in their bearing. Unlike the larger and clamorous cousins with which they often flock, their phrases are clipped, their conversations brief.

They pair for life, share food and, when the male barks his arrival at the nest, the female responds with a softer, longer reply. They like manmade structures. Formerly a nuisance as they favoured chimneys for their twiggy bundles, they’re less troublesome in the era of central heating and their liking for church steeples has long been indulged. As the 18th-century poet William Cowper put it, ‘A great frequenter of the church, Where bishop-like, he finds a perch And dormitory too.’ For this habit, the bird was deemed sacred in parts of Wales.

Jackdaws love people, and probably because they love eye contact

People and jackdaws get on – there’s a certain empathy between them. Many are the stories told by individuals who scooped up stranded fledglings in need and were rewarded with a bemusing trust and friendship. Jackdaws recognise human faces and studies by Cambridge