#birds

#birds

Just beyond the boundary's edge, a cockatoo flew into the hole in a eucalyptus tree where it is nesting. Beyond that, the Swan River flowed. Galahs, chests as pink as those any number of Englishmen will be sporting in a couple of weeks' time, snuffled on the grass. Other birds flitted around the park, even those with less eye-catching plumage sporting eye-catching names: black-faced cuckooshrikes; willie-wagtails. Um, ducks.

How do the small birds in the street know how not to die— that whatever they gather, hunger for, is never enough to keep them in the road when our wheels bear down upon them?

"I think more and more we are really understanding the extent to which social behavior influences animals' lives," says Adelaide Abraham, a PhD student at the University of Oxford and first author of the study. "It's hugely, hugely important."

Dust bathing is a common practice with many species of birds, mammals, and even some insects, including certain species of bees.

Think about that. Wear a hat, Bill Hemmer chimed in. It's the second time in a month that Doocy has had a close encounter with the bird kind.

Ridley's new book explores the extravagant courtship of birds through sexual selection, reviving Darwin's idea that evolution charms mates, not just competes.