IUBio

Mockingbird & Rose Bushes

Kenneth Collins k.p.collins at worldnet.att.net
Wed Oct 23 21:54:26 EST 2002


far-out thought: I 'wonder' if there's one, or more, non-climate,
non-hours-of-sunlight, non-obvious-etc. factor, which is,
nevertheless, correlated to 'climate-change', that the birds are
sensitive to?

Maybe a chemo factor?

'Canaries' in the mine-shaft?

There's got to be an explanation because, if Notabahm's [sp?] work
applies, a =substantial= neural modification is necessary for bird's
singing.

Perhaps it was just a sothern bird that took an 'excursion' up north.
[I only heard the singing on the one day.]

It'd be interesting to receive correlated data from other locales.

Cheers, ken

BradHAWK wrote in message <3DB64BE3.64AF7FF0 at tourette.net>...
>Kenneth Collins wrote:
>>
>> I experienced a wonderous thing the other day [2002-10-20].
>>
>> When I went outside, there was a mockingbird singing its 'heart'
out,
>> crisp and clear, in all its virtuosity.
>>
>> Struck me as 'strange' because mockingbirds' singing is correlated
>> with their mating season, which isn't due, here in New England,
until
>> ~June of 2003. [To my knowledge, Fernando Nottabahm [sp?] didn't
>> study mockingbirde, but I presume his work with other songbirds
>> holds. He found strong seasonal neural hypertrophy correlated with
>> the singing of his subjects.
>>
>> Which is why this cold-weather mockingbird's singing seemed, to
me,
>> wonderous.
><snip>
>
> Interesting you should say that; some Stellar's Jays around
>here (Seattle) seemed to be engaging in mating behavior, and
>their mating season also has passed for the year. As I
>recall, last year the fruit trees in New England were
>blossoming in Winter.
>
> BradHAWK





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