Exam 1 Material Flashcards
What makes a bird a bird? (8 things)
Where are they found?
Common name and full taxonomic classification
blue jay
What are the smallest and largest birds, and about how big are they? Where is each located?
How many bird species are there in the world?
About 10,000
What group of extant vertebrates are birds most closely related to?
crocs
What is Archaeopteryx?
When was it discovered and how far back does it date?
Describe the 10 traits that make it significant.
“ancient winged”
When did modern birds split from other theropod dinosaurs?
When did feathers first evolve?
When did flight first evolve?
Feathers are an exaptation. What does this mean? Why did feathers evolve?
Label the parts of the binoculars
Describe the difference between porro prism and roof prism binoculars
What are 5 non-optical considerations when choosing a pair of binoculars?
Label the parts
What do the center control and diopter control do on a pair of binoculars?
What are the steps to properly focus your binoculars?
Center control focuses both barrels and is used while operating in the field.
Diopter compensates for differences in vision between your left and right eyes.
The first step is to close your right eye and look through the left eyepiece of the binocular. Turn the center focusing wheel until you see a sharp image. Then, close your left eye and look through the right eyepiece. Turn the diopter eyepiece until you see a sharp image in your right eye. Lastly, look through both eyepieces. Use the center focusing wheel only to correct the focus when you begin looking at different objects.
What is objective lens width and why does it matter?
What is magnification? What are the most common magnification levels on modern binos? What are pros/cons of increased magnification?
Explain 4 major considerations for care and storage of binoculars.
What is avian topography?
The parts of a bird and their locations on the bird.
colors, shapes, patterns, parts
What is this bird color?
buff
What is this bird color?
rufous
What is this bird color?
slate
What are these bird colors?
white and black
What is this bird color?
gray
What is this bird color?
brown
What is this bird color?
chestnut
What is this bird color?
chocolate
What is a subtle color characteristic that can be important to understand when banding birds?
Name this part of the head plumage
Name this part of the head plumage
Name this part of the head plumage
Name this part of the head plumage
Name this part of the head plumage
Name this part of the head plumage
Name this part of the head plumage
Name this part of the head plumage
Name this part of the body plumage
Name this part of the body plumage
Name this part of the body plumage
Name this part of the body plumage
Name this part of the body plumage
Name this part of the body plumage
Name this part of the body plumage
Name this part of the body plumage
Explain streaks/stripes, bars, and spots
Describe the bone configuration in a bird’s wing. Where do the primary and secondary feathers attach?
Which feathers comprise the flight feathers?
Primaries, secondaries, tertials
What does “allula” mean? Where does it attach?
“little wing”
attaches to the thumb, moves independently
What is primary projection?
The difference in length between primaries and secondaries when the wing is folded.
Label the wing feathers
Label the feathers
Label the feathers
Describe wing bars
What does gape mean?
How is it useful in ID along with eye color?
What are rectrices and remiges?
How many rectrices are typical?
What are 5 tail-related things to look for when ID’ing a bird?
What’s the difference between songs and calls?
What are 2 common types of calls?
What is migration and why do some species do it?
Explain what precocial, semi-precocial, and altricial mean.
Non-migratory, altricial species
Do males or females establish territories?
Molting?
Aggressiveness toward con/heterospecifics?
Non-migratory, altricial species
When/how often does copulation occur?
Males or females choose nest sites?
Males or females construct nests?
Non-migratory, altricial species
What is a common brood-rearing strategy in this group?
Non-migratory, altricial species
Describe post-fledging in this group
when it occurs
parental dependence
what happens during this period
Non-migratory, altricial species
Describe the post-breeding period in this group
what’s happening with the juveniles and adults?
something special that usually happens in this period
Non-migratory, altricial species
Describe the winter/non-breeding period in this group
grouping
nutrition/body comp
territorial behavior
At what rate do most bird species lay eggs?
Describe incubation timing. Temperature?
What is a full set of eggs called?
Explain synchronous vs. asynchronous hatching and how it relates to the timing of incubation.
Which strategy do most altricial and most prococial species have, respectively?
WTF is this and what is it for?
loose wrinkly skin helps cover the eggs for incubation
Name the life stage of each of these birds
What is multi-brooding and how does it affect care for the young?
What is molting?
What are some other related conditions?
What else happens?
How often?
Describe the lifestyle of a Blue Jay
Non-migratory, altricial species
Non-migratory, precocial species
Describe courtship in this group
single/double parental care?
displays - examples?
m/f interaction
Non-migratory, precocial species
synchronous or asynchronous hatching?
brood patch?
incubation behavior?
Non-migratory, precocial species
brood rearing in this group
nutritional needs
juvenile food acquisition
adult role
Non-migratory, precocial species
post-breeding period in this group
when does separation of adults/young happen?
Non-migratory, precocial species
Non-breeding period in this group
objectives
grouping
Describe the life cycle of a Northern Bobwhite
Non-migratory, precocial species
Migratory, Altricial Species
males/females arrive to breeding ground first?
Migratory, Altricial Species
most common nest type?
construction materials?
Migratory, Altricial Species, brood rearing
Is bi-parental or solo parenting the norm?
Describe what the male and female adults do during this time
Migratory, Altricial Species
How long are fledglings dependent upon adults?
What is a limiting factor to this?
Migratory, Altricial Species
What happens with the adults after breeding and just prior to migration?
How is migration timed with the adults and juveniles? Why?
Juveniles use the extra time to scout breeding/nesting grounds for when they return in the spring (nest fidelity)
Migratory, Altricial Species
Describe their territoriality during winter/non-breeding time.
How are they often arranged socially this time of year and why?
winter fidelity
Describe the Golden-winged Warbler lifecycle
What are 4+ types of nests? Describe each.
Describe fall migration, spring migration, facultative migration, and migratory connectivity
Define distribution/range.
Describe how density and map scale play into this.
Who is Douglas Johnson and what important ecological work did he publish? In what year?
Describe the 4 orders of habitat selection including general size and frequency of change.
What’s the difference between territory and home range?
Compare year-round, breeding, and non-breeding ranges. What occurs in each of these areas?
Describe what this map represents
orange: breeding range
yellow: year-round or migratory range
blue: winter/non-breeding range
migration is not quite as simple as this map indicates (stop-overs, etc.)
Describe migration stopovers.
What is loop migration?
What is leapfrog migration?
tends to occur in subspecies. populations at extreme ends of range migrate farther to opposite extreme end.
What is facultative migration?
bird migrate just far enough to access needed resource when they become sparse
Describe how the Emlen funnel experiements showed that migration might be influenced by the stars.
by changing the orientation of the north star in a planetarium, the birds could be tricked into trying to migrate southward for breeding season.
funnel - ink -screen - planetarium
Describe how birds might orient their migration direction for migration using the magnetic poles. What is a potential problem here?
Describe how migration might be learned in some bird species.
How does genetics affect songbird migration?
experiments have shown specific genes drive specific migration routes (and hybrids take an intermediate route!)
Describe how the USFWS helped Whooping Cranes with migration.
Describe what is meant by ‘irruptive species’ with regards to bird migration/ranges.
only migrate when necessary due to seed crops
How is climate change affecting mountain dwelling birds?
Describe winners (2), losers (2), and not-so-clear (1) examples of how bird species are being affected by climate change.
Define competition. Does it tend to be win/win, win/lose, win/neutral, or lose/lose for those involved?
What’s the difference between interference competition and exploitation competition?
Explain the Law of Competitive Exclusion and Resource Paritioning
When/where does nest site competition occur? Is it interspecific or intraspecific?
bottom: House Wren will sometimes kill eggs/nestlings of other species to take over nest site
Describe 4 ways birds might avoid interspecific competition
Why might there be differences in compeitition between breeding and non-breeding seasons?
Describe 3 examples of ways we might study competition between birds
Explain this chart
Redstarts that have wintering grounds that overlap that of resident Yellow Warblers are far less likely to return to their breeding grounds in the following breeding season, indicating some sort of competitive disadvantage for Redstarts who overlap with Yellow Warblers.
What is brood parasitism?
What are some examples?
What is host farming? Egg dumping?
host farming: cowbird will kill other species nestlings to force the parent bird to lay new clutch so it can lay its egg with those new eggs
egg dumping: waterfowl will just dump an egg or eggs into another nest and the parent bird is unable to figure out which eggs are hers so she just raises them all
What is predation, and what are some common adaptations of avian predators?
Describe 3 common hunting strategies employed by predatory birds. Give examples.
Describe 4 other unique examples (Osprey, Peregrine falcon, Barn Owl, Loggerhead Shrike)
Osprey - diving feet first to catch fish
Peregrine - extremely fast dive (200mph) to catch prey mid-air
Barn Owl - incredible hearing (supposedly can hear a mouse’s heartbeat)
Loggerhead Shrike - “butcher bird”
Describe a couple examples of conservation issues related to avian predation.
What is the primary method birds use to defend territory?
What is the “Dear Enemy” Effect?
Describe intraspecific competition for mates.
What is lekking?
Why are females typically the more “choosy” sex?
Describe intraspecific competition between siblings (asynchronous hatch, siblicide, access to care)
Describe parent-offspring intraspecific conflict
Describe intraspecific competition for nest sites
Explain this example of a study involving intraspecific competition
cormorants - birds in middle of colony produce male offspring; male much larger than female and requires more resources; sex ratio adjusts automatically based on quality of parents
What is mobbing?
What calls are used?
Describe the 2 studies illustrated here.
exp. 1: s2 calls are “dee-dee-dee” of carolina chickadee call. shows the higher the percieved threat, the more s2 calls when mobbing
exp. 2: neighboring birds will help each other mob an owl. when one bird is removed and misses a mobbing sesh, the other bird will no longer help that bird when it returns and subsequently gets attacked
Describe what each of these wings is adapted for
Describe what these foot types are adapted for
swimming, hybrid swimming/walking, grasping prey, generalized walking, etc.
Know how to identify these bill adaptations
Explain gleaning
Explain scratching
Describe a cool experiment regarding how raptors detect voles
Explain wing and tail fanning behavior when foraging. Examples?
What does the illustrated experiment show?
tail fanning experiment showed birds with artificially darkened tail marks flushed winged prey (insects) at a lower rate
Describe filtering/surface tension/spinning foraging methods. Examples?
What is caching? Avian examples?
What do birds of prey have to do with caching?
How is hippocampus development related to caching?
dead blue jays and dead squirrels don’t come back to find nuts, so seeds left behind can germinate
female brown headed cowbird is the one doing host farming so needs more spatial awareness
What type of specialized foraging do many woodpeckers do? What special adaptations do they have for this?
What is bark gleaning? Examples?
What is hawking? Name/describe a modified type of this technique. Examples?
What is probing? Name/describe a modified type of this technique. Examples?
What is up with these bills?
What are the parts of the crossed bill?
crossbill prys open cones by opening jaws sideways after sticking them between cone scales to remove seed
wrybill can flip rocks with its curved bill to forage underneath
What are demographic or vital rates? Why are they important?
Why are individual markers important when studying birds (or any species/population)? How are these usually applied to birds?
Explain return/resight rates. What are they used for?
What is detection probability and why is it important to return calculations?
Explain this.
Why is are the 00s condidered to be “secret 1s” in this example?
we know the 0s were failed detections because the bird returned…dead birds don’t come back to life.
What defines a successful nest?
What is a challenge of determining the percentage of nest success?
Who developed a solution for this? What program replaced this?
What “types” of young might a nest contain?
Why is there differential survival between these types?
eggs need incubation, turning, protection
nestlings need food, protection, warmth, and are easier to detect by predators because they move and make noise
Why has post-fledgin survival been hard to study?
What solutions do we have?
Describe post-fledging survival
high/low?
why?
Describe what we are starting to learn about the post-breeding/post-fledging period.
What are the 4 demographic rates used to estimate population growth?
What else is the population growth rate called? How is it expressed?
What are some additional challenges with calculating this rate?
N1 = N0 + birth - death + immigration - emigration
