black bird

[conny]

Hi Rich,
been busy past day or so and haven't been able to look. Just come on and find the link is broken. Can it be fixed?

 

[Richardp]

Hi Rich,
been busy past day or so and haven't been able to look. Just come on and find the link is broken. Can it be fixed?

I'll see what I can do, just a restart should fix it!

 

[tim west]

Only a week or so to go

 

[chr15]

Hi richard, have you any idea when the eggs were first laid, your first post was on the 3rd May, so if they had been there a few days before then they could be hatching anytime soon! Great idea by the way,good quality as well.

 

[Richardp]

Hi richard, have you any idea when the eggs were first laid, your first post was on the 3rd May, so if they had been there a few days before then they could be hatching anytime soon! Great idea by the way,good quality as well.

Your right chr15! Best keep a look out, it could indeed be any day now!
thanks I have noticed that shes very fidgety at the moment!

 

[Shutpa]

SWALLOWS

Here his wife is injured and the condition is fatal.
She was hit by a car as she swooped low across the road

View media item 11223
Here he brought her food and attended to her with love and compassion.
View media item 11224
He brought her food again but was shocked to find her dead.
He tried to move her....a rarely-seen effort for swallows!

View media item 11225
Aware that his sweetheart is dead and will never come back to him again,
he cries with adoring love.
View media item 11226
He stood beside her, saddened of her death.
View media item 11227
Finally aware that she would never return to him, he
stood beside her body with sadness and sorrow.

And many people think animals don't have a brain or feelings?????

 

[noseall]

That's not compassion, its confusion.

 

[Shutpa]

That's not compassion, its confusion.

You can say that again. Posted by my 12 year old daughter and taken from an e-mail sent to my wife. How she managed to copy it from one user, transfer it to mine, upload the pictures and so on, is beyond my ken. She is out at the moment but I hope to tap into her expertise when she returns.

 

[ColJack]

all of the open sky to fly in and they want to try out the 6-8 feet where the big lumps of fast moving metal are...

and you think they have a brain?

 

[JohnD]

I dare say I'd try and do much the same for my old bird if, God forbid...

 

[Shytalkz]

There is a posting somewhere regarding that bird and it not being all that it seems ie he was trying to get his leg over with the dead one.

 

[Shytalkz]

One interpretation

Now dry your eyes and read this:

Now Kees Moeliker provides an even darker explanation.

Kees is curator of birds at the Rotterdamn Natural History Museum in the Netherlands. In 2003 he was awarded the Ig Nobel biology prize for his paper "The first scientifically recorded case of homosexual necrophilia in the mallard duck." His recently published book De Eendenmon ("The Duck Guy") includes a section on wildlife necrophilia. One of its key examples is those same two barn swallows.

Kees tells us, "These particular birds were not injured, in mourning or in a territorial battle. No, the fluttering swallow-on-top was engaged in one of the best photographically documented cases of necrophilia. From the pictures it is hard to tell if it was homosexual necrophilia or just heterosexual necrophilia: sexes in the barn swallow are very much alike. The less deeply coloured and slightly mottled throat and forehead of the dead swallow point towards it being a juvenile. Indicating that this was a rare case of pedophilic necrophilia.

Kees goes on to say that the pictures were taken by photographer Wilson Hsu somewhere in Taiwan in March 2004. "The talented nature photographer seems to have assumed that the live swallow tried to revive his dead 'relative.'

That's today's parade p*ssed upon

 

[Shutpa]

"It earned him the coveted Ig Nobel prize for biology awarded for improbable (ie not likely to be true) research

Come on Shys, how would you like to be awarded a prize for the most improbable research?

 

[Shytalkz]

Come on Shys, how would you like to be awarded a prize for the most improbable research?

From the pages of Ignobel:

The Ig Nobel Prizes honor achievements that first make people laugh, and then make them think. The prizes are intended to celebrate the unusual, honor the imaginative -- and spur people's interest in science, medicine, and technology

Unlikely to be true appears to be your interpretation of improbable research.

And here's a book too: p77 et seqq.

Finally, the article in question.

 

[wotan]

That's not compassion, its confusion.

Sorry but I disagree, animals do have emotions, and concern for the wellbeing of their partners.
Many years ago we had a Siamese cat, late on in life it developed cancer, the vet said it was in no great pain, so it lived out it's life to the end.
About two weeks before it died, another cat decided to take up residence, a young male tom, he sat with the other cat till the inevitable end.
Years later when this cat was on it's way out, exactly the same thing happened again, another cat came to keep the second cat company.
No one can tell me this is coincidence....animals do have empathy for each other, be it birds cats or dogs.

Wotan