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NATURE
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NatureÌýoffersÌýa window on global natural history, providing a unique insight into the natural world, the environment, and the magnificent creatures that inhabit it.
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LISTEN AGAIN Ìý30 min |
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Avocet World
Avocets perhaps have been immortalised in the UK by their image being the logo of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds.Ìý Avocets are distinctive for several reasons:Ìý They are very black and white (not many wading birds in the UK are), they have a long up turned beak and a proportion of the birds that winter in the UK are unusual insofar they are one of our very few species that do a true internal migration.Ìý Some of our avocets breed in East Anglia and winter in the South West.Ìý
Many wading birds probe in the soft wet mud for shellfish.Ìý Estuaries are great fly in larders for wading birds.Ìý But how do wading birds know where to look for hidden shellfish.Ìý Work by Dutch biologists say it's a mixture of memory - young and congeners in a population learning from successfully feeding birds, and a sense of touch.Ìý The bill tip of wading birds appears to be extraordinarily sensitive, rather like our finger tips.Ìý Clusters of cells at the end of the beak and under the skin allow the bird to measure tiny pressure waves in the wet mud.Ìý These pressure waves are reflections off the shellfish having been generated by the wading birds beak as it penetrates the mud. Amazing work, all of which has great value to the birds conservation.
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