At least one type of bird has eyes that communicate in ways similar to the human eye.  Recent research shows that the jackdaw, a crowlike bird of Europe and parts of Asia, communicates with its eyes much more than does our close relative the chimpanzee, and much more than ’man’s best friend’ the dog.

     When presented with a preferred food by a human, a jackdaw waited longer to retrieve the food when the person was gazing at the food than when the human looked away.  The jackdaws even ‘read’ a human’s gaze intended to help them find hidden food.  For instance, when a human looked toward a place where food had been hidden, then pointed to the spot, then looked toward it again, the birds picked up the cue, searched that spot, and found the hidden food.

     Not only do jackdaws respond to signals from the eyes much as humans do, but their eyes also look similar to ours.  The dark pupil is surrounded by an iris.  The silvery white jackdaw iris is, shall we say, eye-catching. 

     The researchers, led by Nathan Emery of the University of Cambridge and Queen Mary University of London, believe that jackdaws’ eyes are sensitive to human eyes because, as with humans, eyes are an important means of communication for them.  Jackdaws mate for life and “need to closely coordinate and collaborate with their partner, which requires an efficient way of communicating and sensitivity to their partner’s perspective,” says Auguste von Bayern, one of the researchers. 

     The results suggest that birds may deserve more respect for their mental abilities, according to an article about the research in Current Biology.  “We may have underestimated the psychological realms of birds,” says von Bayern.

     A few other interesting facts about jackdaws:

• More than most birds, jackdaws practice active food sharing.  It is usually the donor who initiates the sharing, and the food shared is more likely to be a preferred item, rather than one less preferred by jackdaws.  A jackdaw may share with many individuals, regardless of gender or kinship.
• Jackdaws used to nest in crevices in the lintels of Stonehenge.  The birds are famous for nesting in church steeples.
• Jackdaws are known to steal shiny objects and to hide them in their nests.–April Moore 

     We are all familiar with the changes spring brings to the land–buds and blooms, green shoots emerging from the soil, birds flying northward, and frogs coming to deep throated life around ponds.  But just as the land has its sure signs of spring, so does the ocean.

     The following is an excerpt from The Sea Around Us by Rachel Carson, one of my heroes.  She was a fine nature writer as well as a scientist who woke up the public to the harm pesticides were causing the ecosystem.–April Moore

     “In  the sea, as on land, spring is a time for the renewal of life.  Before life can come, however, food must be provided.  Just as land plants depend on minerals in the soil for their growth, so every plant of the sea, even the smallest, depends upon the nourishing salts or minerals in the water.  Rich stores of these minerals have been gathering on the floor of the continental shelf.  Some have been carried down from the land.  Some have come from sea creatures, large and small, plant and animal, that have drifted down to the bottom.  The waters must be deeply stirred to bring these minerals up.  During the long months of winter in the temperate zones the surface waters have been absorbing the cold.  Now in spring the heavy water begins to sink, slipping down and taking the place of the warmer layers below.  As the warm bottom water is pushed up, it brings the minerals with it.

     “Some of these chemicals have been in short supply in winter, and the diatom population has had to tide itself over as best it could.  It has kept alive the spark of life by forming tough protective spores.  In this state the diatoms have held their place in the winter sea, like seeds of wheat in a field under snow and ice–the seeds from which the spring growth will now come.

     “In the warmth of the spring sun there is a sudden awakening–the simplest plants of the sea begin to multiply.  They increase with unebelievable speed.  The spring sea belongs at first to the diatoms and to all the other tiny vegetables of the plankton.  They cover vast areas of ocean with a living blanket of their cells.  Mile after mile of water may appear red or brown or green, the whole surface taking on the color of the tiny grains of coloring matter in each of the plant cells.

     “But plants rule the sea for only a short time.  Almost at once the small animals of the plankton begin to rival them in numbers.  It is the spawning time of the copepod and the glassworm, the ocean shrimp and the winged snail.  Now in the spring the surface waters become a vast nursery.  From the continent’s edge lying far below, and from the scattered shoals and banks, the eggs or young of many of the bottom animals drift up to the surface of the sea.  Even those which later on will sink to a settled life on the bottom spend their first weeks as freely swimming hunters of the plankton.  New batches of larvae rise into the surface each day.  The young of fishes and crabs and mussels and tube worms mingle for a time with the year-round members of the plankton.

     “Under the steady, hungry grazing, the grasslands are soon reduced.   The diatoms become more and more scarce and with them the other simple plants.  Still there are brief outbursts of one or another of them.  So, for a time each spring, the waters may become blotched with jellylike masses of a simple brown seaweed.  Then the fishermen’s nets come up dripping a brown slime and containing no fish.  For the herring have truned away from these waters as though driven out by the foul-smelling algae.  But in less than two weeks the waters have cleared again.

     “In the spring the sea is filled with migrating fishes.  Some of them are bound for the mouths of great rivers, which they will ascend to lay their eggs.  Such are the spring-run chinook salmon coming in from the deep Pacific feeding grounds to the Columbia.  Such are the shad moving in to the Chesapeake and the Hudson and the Connecticut.  The alewives or river herring seek a hundred coastal streams of New England;  the Atlantic salmon feel their way to the Penobscot and the Kennebec.  For months or years these fish have known only the vast spaces of the ocean.  Now the spring sea and the maturing of their own bodies lead them back to the rivers of their birth.”

A copepod or ocean shrimp

A diatom

 

 

     To say that Monday was a red letter day for the environment and all who love it would be a great understatement!  On that day President Obama signed into law one of the most sweeping land and water protections ever enacted.

     The Omnibus Public Lands Management Act of 2009, passed in March by both houses of Congress, protects two million acres of wilderness in nine states, the greatest expansion in wilderness designation in 15 years.  The Act also expands the federal wild and scenic rivers system by a full 50%, providing protection for an additional 1,000 miles of rivers.

     The legislation was a package of more than 150 bills developed by supporters in communities around the country, with help from elected representatives.  “As a result,” said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, “the legislation enjoys broad support from wildlife, conservation, hunting, fishing, and outdoor business groups across the country.”

     A few highlights in the new law:

• The Taunton River, the longest New England river with no dam, and therefore a haven for numerous species of fish and wildlife, is now protected for future generations.
• Legal status is now provided for the National Landscape Conservation System, which contains areas of archaeolgical and cultural significance, such as the Canyons of the Ancients National Monument in  Colorado, and Agua Fria National Monument in Arizona.   
• The National Park System’s first geologic trail will be created.  It is the Ice Age Floods National Geologic Trail in the Pacific Northwest.
• The Amargosa River will be protected.  This ribbon of green that runs through California desert is a lifeline for rare and endangered species, and a critical source of water for Death Valley National Park and its gateway communities. 
• Protection will be provided for important coastal and estuarine areas that have significant conservation, recreation, ecological, historic, aesthetic, or watershed protection values, and that are threatened by conversion to other uses. 

     Truly, this sweeping legislation is cause for rejoicing.  William Meadows, president of the Wilderness Society, put it well when he said, “I am grateful that Congress has enacted this important legislation.  Future generations will look back at this day as a major milestone in our nation’s conservation history.”

     Below are a few pictures of some of the sites that will be protected, thanks to the new law.–April Moore