Magpie Nest in Building

Nest building by birds

state and at a private university. Despite the great diversity among them, there is a common theme. All universities have flaws, but the ideal is a universal one, a place where scholars are free to study and teach, and young people to learn. Robert Maynard Hutchins was chancellor of the University of Chicago when I was an undergraduate student. At the time, Senator Joseph McCarthy was attacking...

Colour preferences in nest-building zebra finches.

Some bird species are selective in the materials they choose for nest building, preferring, for example, materials of one colour to others. However, in many cases the cause of these preferences is not clear. One of those species is the zebra finch, which exhibits strong preferences for particular colours of nest material. In an attempt to determine why these birds strongly prefer one colour of ...

Nest-site selection and nesting success in the Azure-winged Magpie in Central Spain

Urban Dynamics Modelling Using Ant Nest Building

Urban dynamics deal with spatial organizations where a great complexity of interactions appears. Social and economic aspects interact and environmental objectives are nowadays a major purpose for sustainable urban development. We propose some generic modelling processes able to face with this complexity, in order to simulate the evolution of the city centers. These organizational centers need a...

Individuality in nest building: do southern masked weaver (Ploceus velatus) males vary in their nest-building behaviour?

We currently have little understanding of how birds know what nest to build and what little we do know has been gained largely from investigations of the completed structures (morphology of finished nests) or of material selection. Here we looked at the behaviours performed by male Southern Masked weaverbirds when building their nests. During the two earliest phases of construction individual m...