BBC Earth Productions is back with another mesmerizing bit of high-speed footage that captures hawks as they’re swooping in to attack their prey. Seeing all of the bird’s complex feather mechanics in action as it slows mid-air to snatch its target is utterly fascinating, and seeing it extend those terrifying claws will make you happy you’re not a tiny rodent caught in its crosshairs. [YouTube via Laughing Squid] More »
The B-2 Spirit aka Stealth Bomber has a very distintictive shape, and when you place it up against a hawk/falcon(?), you can suddenly see why. Nature has bombers of its own, and that form factor just happens to work out well for us too. But for all their similarities, I think we’d all prefer to get hit by the bird’s bombs if we had to pick one. [The Aviationist] More »
Swallows that nest on roadsides appear to have evolved shorter wings to help them maneuver better and avoid cars, claim a team of scientists from the University of Tulsa in Oklahoma. More »
Looking more like something out of The Lorax than what you would find in Africa’s Kalahari Desert, these fantastically decorated telephone poles are actually home to the aptly named Sociable Weaver bird. More »
This is more or less like the grown-up, nerded-out scientist version of those spinny roulette toys you had as a kid that taught you that The Cow Goes Moo. Except the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s Macaulay Library tells you that the katydid goes, uhhh, “dial-up modem noise“? More »
A lot of us put ear buds in our ears, but that’s about as intrusive as mainstream headphone-wearing gets for us humans. This pair of bird headphones is a bit different. Epoxied to this little guy’s skull, this set of special headphones is blasting some off-key tunes so scientist can learn how bird auto-tune works. More »
A baby girl named Hashtag. A fox that can answer calls and send text messages. And now birds that tweet? Now I’ve seen everything.
Of course, these birds were only able to do so with the help of humans. They didn’t really know what they were doing when they did it either, but hey, a tweet is a tweet.
The project was devised and carried out by Latvian conceptual artist and creative director Voldemars Dudums. He essentially came up with a bird feeder which he built using an old keyboard and huge chunks of bacon fat. He then placed it outside and waited.
Eventually, the birds came and began munching away at the bacon. As they did so, the keys that were pressed were fed to an API which parsed each tap into a tweet which was posted on @hungry_birds. Clever, clever.
What will humans think of next?
[via Colossal]
Scarecrows are a tried and true piece of human technology, but nowadays birds harass more than just crops; they also bother planes. That’s why South Korea has developed a new kind of overkill scarecrow for airports: an unmanned tank with laser and acoustic weapons. More »
If there’s one thing you learn living in a crowded urban metropolis it’s that birds don’t have any trouble finding a place to nest. And when they do, you hope it’s not anywhere within earshot of your windows. More »
These days there are plenty of opportunities to take interesting photographs from unusual angles, including strapping tiny digital cameras to birds. But some early aerial photography was rather more clunky—and used massive cameras strapped to the breasts of pigeons. More »
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