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By Nelli Falzgraf
Nelli's Notes
There's nothing like a midwinter getaway to clear the mind and recharge the system, and maybe give the body a workout, too. Many Nebraskans look to sunny, warm places for an escape. Randy and I found our winter R & R skiing in Colorado at Copper Mountain and snowshoeing at the forest behind his sister and hubby's digs in Silverthorne. We were stationed at the North American Air Defense Command in Colorado Springs when our daughter was young and caught the winter sports bug, which we've never shaken, even when the U.S. Air Force sent us on a tour of duty in Hawaii at a solar observatory.
Nature News for Bird Lovers
Doesn't that include most of us in ASO? Friends of mine who subscribe to the New York Times told me of an article by Sandra Blakeslee in the February 1 issue titled "Minds of Their Own: Birds Gain Respect. Smarter Than Anyone Thought." Thank you, Laurine Blankenau and Lorinda Langner. Then in the February 7 World-Herald, page 5A an article from the Washington Post appeared. It is safe to say much interest has been generated in bird brains.
Researchers and birders found clever behaviors of birds, not explained by common views of them as "bird brains." At a university campus in Japan, carrion crows "line up patiently at the curb waiting for a traffic light to turn red. When cars stop, they hop into the crosswalk, place walnuts from nearby trees onto the road and hop back to the curb. After the light changes and cars run over the nuts, the crows wait until it is safe and hop back out for the food."
In the Nature Neuroscience Review journal, a group of avian experts agreed that bird brains are as "complex, flexible, and inventive" as those of mammals, and it's time to correct the terms we use in order to accurately state the new knowledge.
"In mammals the bottom third of the brain contained neurons organized in clusters. The top two/thirds of the brain consists of a flat sheet of cells with six layers. This new brain, the seat of higher intelligence, lay over the old brain, the seat of instinctual behaviors." In birds, the brain is "composed entirely of clusters," which led to the classic view of birds as creatures guided by instinct.
A neuroscientist at the University of California, San Diego, began using new experimental methods to study brain "wiring" and trace the routes being made by a variety of "brain chemicals." He found that dopamine projected mostly into the lower brain of humans and birds. Later studies show "many similarities between clusters in the mammalian brain and lower clusters in the avian brain." Experts agree that
the lower clusters of both are "evolutionarily older structures that lie under a newer mantle," where thinking occurs.
Where experts differ is about the upper clusters of a bird's brain. They're not primitive, but from where did they derive? Some say avian brains form the same sorts of "internal connections" as mammal's brains, and intelligence in both birds and mammals both result from these "connections." Others believe bird intelligence resulted or evolved through building upon an ancient part of a mammalian brain and putting it to new uses.
Researchers at the University of Cambridge, England, compared two highly social groups, apes and corvids—jays, ravens, jackdaws. These birds are known to be smart, maybe because in relation to the size of the body, the crow's brain in fact is the same size as that of he chimpanzee. An explanation for intelligence is that it "evolved to process and use social information— who is allied to whom and how to use this information for deception."
Meanwhile, examples of bird brilliance continue to delight bird watchers and researchers. For example, Nutcrackers are known to conceal and rob. If they observe other birds watching them conceal food, they'll come back later to hide the food again. Do they understand that another bird intends to take their cache?
We may know pigeons are smart. It seems they know how to deceive other pigeons by pretending to find a source of food so that other pigeons will go for it, while the deceivers sneakily retreat to the place with food.
Fall Migration
We're told the duck and goose fall migration was not at all typical. The large flocks didn't stop here and were not observed until seen further south. What did they know and what told them to change their habits? Seeing them here is a fall experience we look forward to. We hope spring will induce them to make our area a stopover.
Nature's Power
After the tragic losses brought about by the earthquake and tsunami, something might be learned. Least disturbed by the tidal wave were the animals that fled the scene in time and a village of people who survived because they knew the ways of the sea, moving back from the coast before it was too late. Some marine biologists believe the shrunken
