This article explores how cardinals perceive their environment, and how they explore their place in it, especially with respect to color.
Do Cardinals Know They Are Red? A Closer Look at a Christmas Icon
The Club-Winged Manakin: A Bird That Plays Its Wings
The club-winged manakin, a small South American bird, produces unique wing-generated sounds for courtship, trading flight efficiency for the ability to attract females with precise stridulation.
Keep Young and Beautiful: A Natural History of Courtship, Vanity, and the Art of Looking Good
Annie Lennox's song "Keep Young and Beautiful" reflects the irony of beauty as a persuasion strategy rooted in evolutionary biology. Various species, from cleaner wrasses to dung beetles, demonstrate deliberate manipulation of appearance and behavior to enhance mating success, revealing shared evolutionary patterns in beauty and attraction across species.
The White Bellbird: Nature’s Loudest Performer
The male White Bellbird Procnias albus. Nature's answer to KISS. Photo: Hector Bottai, 2019. Imagine strolling under the lush, deep green canopy of the Amazon Rainforest. You are surrounded by a vibrant mix of bird calls - macaws, hoatzins, the musician wren. Then, one voice cuts through the symphony with the power of a rock... Continue Reading →
The Bird in Music: Chasing Ghosts in a Fading Meadow
In honor of the Linda Hall Library opening its latest exhibition, "Chained to the Sky: The Science of Birds, Past and Future," this post is a celebration of birds' place in music through the ages. While the celebration is muted by birds' precipitous decline, it also serves as a crucial reminder that there is still... Continue Reading →
ERIC DORFMAN 