Like many creatures, hummingbirds consume alcohol, which they’re able to metabolize quickly. A new study explains how they do it — and how it might just helps us understand why humans are so attracted to alcohol.
Tag: birds
NEW DELHI — I had never given thought to the provenance of funeral wood, until news reports revealed in late April that officials in Delhi had begun receiving requests to chop trees in city parks amidst the colossal surge in COVID deaths. It was a jolting statement to encounter, for it forced me to reframe a life-giver into a death-enabler in ominously stripped, urgent terms. Wood, of course, had been used for cremation since ancient times, but to think of it as coming from our very midst instead of some sequestered supply-area bore a sting of abrasiveness. Would our public […]
Wind power has its drawbacks, especially in central German region of Hesse, where developers want to erect generators in wooded areas like the Reinhardswald, of Brothers Grimm fame.
CAIRO — “It’s a hobby, but it’s also more than that,” Ahmed Shaloufa says, as we climb the final ladder to his pigeon coop in the working-class district of Sayeda Zeinab. “It’s a passion.” Once inside the coop, the labyrinthine streets and megalith apartment blocks of the old city disappear from view. If you jump […]
Wild parakeet populations are expanding in many European cities, where they enjoy the relative warmth of dense urban settings and have easy access to food.
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Where Weavers Nest
This tree was not afflicted by some strange disease: “Village weavers” — little yellow birds we got to see on both Mauritius and Réunion islands — had made it their home.
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Roses And Chirps
Too bad slides can’t convey the sounds and odors of a given time and space. Coming across this image from Paris, I can still hear and smell the flower and bird market on the Île de la Cité where my wife Claudine and I were taking a walk one day.
LIMA — The Peruvian capital has no shortage of vultures flying overhead. For the past year they have also been enlisted to help find, and perhaps eventually clear, some of Lima’s worst illegal trash heaps. How is it done? The city and scientists have been using 10 vultures strapped with GPS and GoPro cameras to […]
Even in the small Danish town of Holbæk, officials have resorted to taking out their enemies with a campaign of drone strikes. The target: a flock of seagulls (not that flock) described as aggressive and, well, messy. After constant reports of the seagulls threatening citizens and stealing their food, the town in northern Denmark has […]
When snow falls on Monesi di Triora, a ski resort in the Alps, it can seem like a perfect winterland paradise. But any kind of winter sports activity has now been prohibited — just because of a big bird. The black grouse in question, say naturalists, could be bothered by excessive human presence, because during […]
Ravens tend to have a bad rap. In the Middle Ages, because they fed on corpses after executions, they were associated with gallows. In mythology, two ravens symbolizing wisdom and intelligence were attributes of the northern god Odin. But ravens — and other members of the corvine family like crows, jackdaws and magpies — are […]
LONDON — The storms and flooding in the UK over the past few weeks hasn’t just damaged homes and cars, but also wildlife and ecosystems too. Bumblebees, beetles and caterpillars are at risk of dying at greatly elevated rates through drowning and disturbed hibernations, while earthworms, snails and beetles along the River Thames will be […]
Look up in the sky. No wait, don’t!
BERLIN – How fast is evolution? Pretty fast, according to a recent study by researchers at the University of Tulsa published in the scientific journal Current Biology. An estimated 80 million birds are killed by cars each year. In Europe too, millions of birds die the same way. But over the past 30 years, the […]