Event: NSAS October Speaker Series on Zoom

Date: Thursday October 08, 2020

Time: 7:00 PM

Dr. Bruce Lyon will present Sparrows in the Mist: the Complex Social Behaviors of Golden-crowned Sparrows. (NSAS Event)

Details:

Zoom Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87518183579

Meeting ID: 875 1818 3579

Passcode: 489487

Ornithologists often study breeding birds, and as a result, the winter ecology and behavior of migratory birds is relatively understudied. For the past 17 years, Dr. Bruce Lyon and his students have been studying a population of Golden-crowned Sparrows that winter in the University of California, Santa Cruz Arboretum. Individual sparrows return winter after winter to the arboretum and flock together with the same individuals as in previous years. Bruce's research has revealed remarkable social complexity in these birds that is similar in some ways to the societies of mammals, including primates. Learn about how the winter lives of these modest little brown birds—from the use of their black and gold crown patches as signals, to the winter songs of males and females—are surprisingly more complex than previously thought.

This FREE talk is recommended for ages 10+ and will be ~45 minutes with additional time for questions & answers.

submitted on September 10, 2020, at 10:58 AM PST

Red-winged Blackbird © 2012 Dave McMullen Wrentit © 2013 Dave McMullen Cassin's Vireo © 2013 Dave McMullen Ferruginous Hawk © 2014 Dave McMullen Western Meadowlark © 2013 Dave McMullen

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