When we first started birding we went on a migratory hawk watch. Sitting for hours counting tiny specks in the sky, we were amazed when our birding mentors identified birds we could hardly find with our binoculars.
“Bet you can’t identify that one,” we were challenged. It turned out to be a joke – it was a “gas-hawk”, better known as a small airplane. Over the years, as we’ve become accomplished birders, we’ve come up with our own term. We will often identify something, and then correct ourselves. They are usually called a “not-a-bird.”
It might be a coke bottle bobbing in a pond, or a black plastic bag caught on a piece of brush. When you are thinking “bird” it’s amazing the tricks your mind can play. But now we have to worry about Robot Birds.
At California State University, Long Beach, under biological sciences assistant professor Esteban Fernandez-Juricic, students have helped computer-train mechanical birds for some of their experiments. Since it’s rather hard to convince a wild bird to act in a controllable manner, the robots can provide the stimulus, and the experimenters can video-tape the reactions of the real birds.
The robot birds were modeled after male and female house finches, using “decommissioned” bird skins from the school’s Vertebrate Museum. And they are quite realistic. They are sure that the birds are fooled by the substitution.
Some of the experiments test ideas about bird flocking behavior, and they have discovered interesting behavior patterns. For example the closer two birds (or a bird and a robot) are to each other, the more influence the movements of one will have on the other. Have you ever watched the synchronized movements of flocks of shorebirds – how they take to the air in unison, twisting and turning together? This type of flocking behavior is still a puzzle, but gradually it is being solved by studies like these.
As for the photograph, it’s a house finch like they use in their experiments. Not a robot. Yes, I’m sure it’s a bird!
For More Information:
The Sibley Guide to Birds
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