Bird Session @Burke Museum Seattle (4/26/2012)
On 4/26/2012 I took part of a three part session on birds at the collection storage and study area at the Burke Museum on campus at the University of Washington. I would argue that this "back" area of the museum is actually more interesting the displays shown at the museum itself. If you can handle the smell of some dead meat and a bunch of bird taxidermy. On our visit there were three different sections of the session that were led by Prof. Tewksbury (Parasitism), Mr. Rower (Sexuality), and Susan Waters (Population).
What I learned from Mr. Rower's section:
-The different (more vivid) color between the gender in birds is usually on the males. The male birds have this physical trait to impress/attract females for mating. This is known as color dimorphism.
-There is also size dimorphism in which male birds are typically larger than female birds due to male competition with other male birds for mating rights.
-Some female birds are bigger than the males because the males are the ones that do parental care while the females go out and search for food and protect the nest area. Therefore the female birds have become biologically bigger than their male counterpart. *NOTE: this is most common with shore birds and/or birds in the arctic area.
-Birds from the tropics tend to have some diverse color formations and patterns due to competition of both male and females over mating and territorial rights. Though the same species of birds from the tropics that resides in North America have a duller and different color dimorphism between its counterpart from the tropics.
-Fairy Rens molt (change feather colors) according to mating seasons to attract mate(s). Usually from grey to a bright blue.
What I learned from Prof. Tewksbury (Parasitism)
-Weever eggs have distinct patterns and are colonial nesting birds. Weevers lay their eggs in other Weever nest because they don't want to raise their own chicks. Though some opposing Weevers "egg dump" the intruding Weever eggs.
-The Brown-Headed Cow bird lays 40-60 eggs per year. Puts all of its eggs in other bird nests (parasitism). Their egg shells are thicker than normal bird egg shells to protect the developing chick from the host bird. They also tend to lay their eggs in nests that are occupied by small birds.
-Brown-Headed Cow birds use a "mafia" technique to insure its chick is taken care of by chucking the host birds' chick(s) off of the nest and intimidating the host bird into taking care of the cow birds chick.
-The host bird tends not to "egg dump" Cow bird eggs due to the chance that it may be their own egg.
What I learned from Susan's section (Population)
-Population is important to conservation biology and species management and control.
-When analyzing animal population you must consider if the population is stable, decreasing, or increasing.
-A museum data collection of a wide variety of species is needed to studying and understand biological, and social history of numerous animal species.
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