AMAZING MATING RITUALS OF BIRDS

The ultimate purpose of courtship is to attract a receptive mate, but there are actually several other purposes behind the courtship behavior of different bird species. 

The intricate moves of a courtship dance and the recognizable bird sounds and songs used to attract mates can help distinguish species so birds are sure to choose compatible mates. 

Different courtship behaviors also serve to reduce territorial aggression between birds, letting them relax together to form a pair bond. 

Depending on the type of behavior, how the birds react in courtship can also display strength, health and mating desirability, allowing different birds to choose the best partners and ensure viable offspring.

TYPES OF BIRD COURTSHIP BEHAVIOUR

There are several different types of courtship rituals that bird species can use for finding a mate. 

Singing: Singing is one of the most common ways birds can attract a mate. The intricacy of the song, or the variety of different songs one bird can produce, help to advertise its maturity and intelligence – desirable characteristics for a healthy mate.

Displays: Flamboyant plumage colors and elaborate displays of prominent feathers, skin sacs or body shape can show off how strong and healthy a bird is, advertising its suitability as a mate. 

Dancing: Physical movements, from daring dives to intricate sequences including wing flaps, head dips, or different steps can be part of a courtship ritual. In many species, the male alone will dance for his female, while in other species both partners will interact with one another. Dance mistakes show inexperience or hesitancy and would likely not lead to a successful mating.

Preening: Close contact between male and female birds can be part of the courtship rituals to help diffuse their normal spatial boundaries and aggression. The birds may lightly preen one another, sit with their bodies touching or otherwise lean on one another to show that they are not intending to harm their partner.

Feeding: Offering food is another common part of the bird courtship behavior for many species. Typically a male bird may bring a morsel to the female, demonstrating that he is able not only to find food, but that he can share it and is able to provide for her while she incubates eggs or tends the brood.

Building: Some birds seek to attract a mate by showing off their architectural skills. Constructing nests before the female arrives is a way for males to claim territory and show the suitable nesting areas they can defend. They may also decorate the nest with pebbles, moss, flowers or even litter to make it more eye-catching. 

Diving: Many birds make flying and diving displays to attract the females.The cock-tailed tyrant bird makes a steep vertical ascent flying up to impress the ladies. He is thought to be quite the clown.Peregrines do aerobatic flights above the area where the female bird is to impress them.   

 SOME AMAZING MATING RITUALS

Male frigatebirds have red kidney-shaped pouches on their chests that they inflate like balloons to attract girls. During mating season, the male sits on a nest and gyrates his puffed-up chest at the females flying overhead. When a female sees a male she likes, she lands beside him. However, copulation is often interrupted when other jealous males jump on the chosen partner and try to puncture his red balloon.

Ducks have a reputation for being monogamous, but the reality is more gruesome, as the females are often gang raped by the males. This behavior is so ingrained in ducks that the female's oviduct (vagina) has sacs and dead ends that can hold and expel unwanted sperm. Scientists theorize that she can unblock her oviduct if so inclined, meaning that she usually ends up with the desired drake's ducklings.

This mating ritual of the Emperor Penguin starts miles apart. The males and females walk 30 to 70 miles to inland Antarctica and meet at a breeding site. Then they stand in a crowd and the males “bugle” for the females, who recognize their mates’ voices. They take a waddle around the group, bow deeply to one another, nuzzle, and make loving noises before mating.

Grebes, a kind of water bird, perform a bird version of ballet before mating. They start out mimicking each other’s movements and then rise out of the water and run along its surface, flapping their short wings and tripping along in perfect unison. At the end, they dive under the water and come up with grass from the bottom as if to say, "Here is what we will use to make our nest."

White-Fronted Parrots kiss by putting their beaks together and touching each other’s tongues. Then the male vomits into the female’s mouth. To the female, this is a tasty treat that gets her in the mood.

So the next time you go birding, look out for the mating birds!

TEN MYTHS YOU ALWAYS THOUGHT WERE TRUE

Mount Everest – Is It The Tallest Of Them All?

Mount Everest is one whopping big mountain, but is it the tallest in the world? In fact it is not. 

A mountain is highest in regard to how far it soars above sea level. But technically it is tallest from base to summit. And Mauna Kea kills it at being the tallest.

Everest is only 29,029 feet (8,848 meters) above sea level, with none of it below sea level.

Above sea level, Mauna Kea (in Hawaii) is only 13,799 feet (4,206 meters). But when you count the enormous portion of it that's underwater, it's 33,465 feet tall (10,200 meters).

Mother Birds Will Abandon Babies if You Touch Them

If a baby bird is floundering around on the ground, looking like it's desperate to get in the air, but it can't despite all its efforts, don't fret about not moving it away from a cat ready to pounce.

Baby birds usually don't leave the nest until they're ready to fly. But that doesn't mean the fledgling's parents aren't supervising their offspring. They're probably in a nearby tree, watching them.

As for the scent issue – birds just don't smell too well. A few species are an exception, but chances are vastly greater that the little chirping ball of fluff won't suffer if you need to move it to the other side of the fence from where your dog plays.

Deoxygenated Blood Is Blue

Everybody has veins snaking up and down their bodies, and those veins are blue. So it stands to reason that deoxygenated blood that courses through those veins is, as a matter of course, blue.

But it is not true. Blood is always red, bright or a darker red. The veins are blue thanks to a trick of the light, not the color of what's inside them.

Lightning never strikes the same place twice

False. Lightning can strike the same place twice even during the same storm. The Empire State building gets struck at least 20 times a year according to different sources. 

Fully Draining the Battery on Your Smartphone or Laptop Helps Condition It

This used to be true for older nickel- cadmium and nickel-metal hydride rechargeable cells. However, this is not true for lithium-ion or lithium-ion polymer cells. You can recharge a lithium-ion polymer battery whenever convenient, without requiring a full charge or discharge cycle.

Constant “deep cycles” — a complete drain of your battery — “is rough on any battery and can decrease performance over time. Using the battery is the best thing for it.”

Regardless of how you use it, your laptop or smartphone battery should retain near full potency for around 2 to 3 years.

Ostriches Bury Their Heads In The Sand When They're Scared Or Threatened.

Ostriches don't bury their heads in the sand—they wouldn't be able to breathe!

But they do dig holes in the dirt to use as nests for their eggs. Several times a day, a bird puts her head in the hole and turns the eggs. So it really does look like the birds are burying their heads in the sand!

A Camera With More Megapixels is Better

Perhaps no tech myth is as gleefully perpetuated — or at least intimated — by digital camera-makers that somehow more megapixels equal a better digital photo.

Megapixels have absolutely nothing do with digital photo quality, only digital photo size. The quality of a digital camera photo is determined by a camera’s sensor type and size, its processor and its optics. The only impact the number of megapixels makes is in the quality of a zoomed-in image snapped by a smartphone. 

A 16-MP digital camera with a larger image sensor will give you better images than a 20-MP model with a smaller sensor.

The Government Can Track Your Cellphone Even When It’s Off

None of the websites repeating this paranoid belief cite a single concrete, documented case of phone-off tracking for one good reason: It’s impossible.

 “Any signal requires power to transmit. There is a product to track phones … BUT this is only possible if the phone is powered.” The one exception is if you’ve unintentionally installed a piece of malware — a Trojan horse used to control and/or monitor the device . 

A temporary solution is to remove the battery; a more permanent solution is installing an anti-virus app on your phone. But the bottom line is “no power equals no electronics can work.”

Touching a frog or toad will give you warts.

Many frogs and toads have bumps on their skin that look like warts. Some people think the bumps are contagious.

 "Warts are caused by a human virus, not frogs or toads. But the wart like bumps behind a toad's ears can be dangerous. These parotoid glands contain a nasty poison that irritates the mouths of some predators and often the skin of humans.

So toads may not cause warts, but they can cause other nasties. It's best not to handle these critters—warts and all!

The Great Wall of China Is the Only Man-made Object Visible from Space

The Great Wall Of China gets a double whammy on this myth. You can see other man-made objects from space (especially when the part of the Earth being viewed is awash in the artificially illuminated glow of nighttime).Cities light up like spiderwebs at night, of course, but even during the day lots of stuff is visible.

Bridges, dams, airports and major highways are among the structures seen by spacemen as they shoot across the sky. It's also pretty hard to pick out the Great Wall of China from any space-based locale because built from rocks of the same colour as the landscape. So unless China decides to give the wall a makeover and paint it hot pink, it's going to remain fairly hard to spot from space.