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Full-Text Articles in Ornithology
A Sonic Net Reduces Damage To Sunflower By Blackbirds (Icteridae): Implications For Broad-Scale Agriculture And Crop Establishment, Amanda K. Werrell, Page E. Klug, Romuald N. Lipcius, John P. Swaddle
A Sonic Net Reduces Damage To Sunflower By Blackbirds (Icteridae): Implications For Broad-Scale Agriculture And Crop Establishment, Amanda K. Werrell, Page E. Klug, Romuald N. Lipcius, John P. Swaddle
VIMS Articles
Blackbirds, such as red-winged blackbirds (Agelaius phoeniceus), are notorious agricultural pests and damage crops at multiple stages of growth. Our aim was to test a novel deterrent, the use of sound designed to mask communication among birds (termed a “Sonic Net”), to deter blackbirds (Icteridae) from target areas of maturing sunflower crops. The Sonic Net masks communication of a target species by delivering “pink noise” that overlaps with the frequencies that the species uses for acoustic communication. If birds cannot hear predators or conspecific warning calls their perceived predation risk increases, and they relocate to an area with lower predation …
Projected Hg Dietary Exposure Of 3 Bird Species Nesting On A Contaminated Floodplain (South River, Virginia, Usa), Jc Wang, Mc Newman
Projected Hg Dietary Exposure Of 3 Bird Species Nesting On A Contaminated Floodplain (South River, Virginia, Usa), Jc Wang, Mc Newman
VIMS Articles
Dietary Hg exposure was modeled for Carolina wren (Thryothorus ludovicianus), Eastern song sparrow (Melospiza melodia), and Eastern screech owl (Otus asio) nesting on the contaminated South River floodplain (Virginia, USA). Parameterization of Monte-Carlo models required formal expert elicitation to define bird body weight and feeding ecology characteristics because specific information was either unavailable in the published literature or too difficult to collect reliably by field survey. Mercury concentrations and weights for candidate food items were obtained directly by field survey. Simulations predicted the probability that an adult bird during breeding season would ingest specific amounts of Hg during daily foraging …