Qianjiang Evening News Hourly News Reporter Wang Zhan
It's the breeding season for birds, but at the same time, many birds fall from their nests to the ground.
According to the Qianjiang Evening News, a group of renovation workers in Xiangshan County, Ningbo, rescued a small owl. The teachers and students of Taizhou Middle School also rescued two small owls that fell from the nest on the campus.
So what do we do when we are faced with a situation where young birds fall from their nests? In this issue of Science Exchange, we invited Fan Zhongyong, a researcher at the Zhejiang Natural History Museum, to give us an interpretation.
Baby birds cannot be rescued immediately when they fall
It should be observed secretly first
Generally speaking, birds that have not yet grown wings, the mother bird will not force them to do flight training. And the little bird brothers and sisters who have not yet opened their eyes will generally not push each other out because of the competition for survival.
When we find a young bird that has landed on the ground, if it is a young bird that is not injured, it is best to place it near the tree or other safe place to avoid stray cats, and the adult bird will find it when it hears the song. Only if it cannot be returned or if the injury is too serious, it requires manual assistance.
Therefore, when you see a young bird falling to the ground or appearing on the side of the road, do not rush to pick it up, but should stand in the distance and quietly see if it is injured.
Some small owls can grow feathers about 35-40 days after birth, and then leave the nest for about 10 days, but they cannot do long-distance smooth flight, and adult owls need to lead for about 20 days to do smooth flight and prey, so the specific situation can be judged before rescue.
How to judge it? As mentioned above, the young birds in the breeding season may have fallen to the ground due to learning to fly; if they are really injured, they can report to the wildlife authorities and arrange for professional rescue agencies to intervene. The average person lacks rescue knowledge, does not recommend personal rescue, and can not take home to raise, not to mention that owls are nationally protected animals.
What kind of bird is an owl exactly
What's going on with the "hu-hu" sound
Owls are our colloquial name for owl birds.
Owl birds are round and fat, the head is relatively wide, the feathers on the front of the head are arranged into a face plate, some species have ear-like plumage clusters, because of the unique eyes and face plates, ear feathers make their heads very similar to cats, so they are called owls.
Because most of the owls are active at night, the whereabouts are relatively hidden, these rare night elves are often covered with a layer of mystery, and even in our country, the folk are marked with the labels of "ominous things", "unlucky" and "evil birds", in fact, these are because of the lack of understanding of owls in ancient times, resulting in unscientific statements.
Especially during the breeding season, they make a song to find a mate or contact each other. Different owls have different chirps, and they often make loud "wu wu" or low "hu-hu" sounds in the middle of the night.
Owls are distributed in tropical to temperate forests, deserts or grasslands, according to the latest classification system, a total of 248 species of owls worldwide, in addition to Antarctica, there are 32 species of owls in China. Owls are at the top of the food chain in the ecosystem and are top consumers, preying primarily visually and audibly. Owls are carnivores, preferring to prey on rodents, birds, lizards and insects, and a few owls have migratory habits.
Owls come out day and night
Easily turn your head 180 degrees
As we all know, owls like to be active at night and can hunt in almost all darkness. Of course, there are also some who prefer to be active in the morning and dusk, and a few species also have a daily nature.
This is because nocturnal owls hunt for nocturnal animals such as rodents and rabbits, while a small number of daytime owls hunt for daytime animals such as fish.
In order to adapt to life in the dark, the owl's body structure was specialized. It has rod cells and cone cells on the retina responsible for sensing light to external objects, the former has a high sensitivity to light, but can not distinguish colors, and the resolution of details is also poor; The latter has a low sensitivity to light, but can distinguish colors and details. When there is enough light during the day, it is mainly the cone cells that are active; at night, when the light is dim, it is necessary to rely on the rod cells to identify.
For nocturnal activity, the owl's photoreceptor cells are almost all turned into rod cells, so that they can fly freely at night and cannot see clearly during the day.
It's also amazing that an owl can rotate its head 180° and stare directly at you from behind.
Its eyes grow on the front of the head, and the field of view of the eyes is only 150°, which is close to humans, which adversely affects its observation and hunting. But over the course of its long evolution, it has formed longer cervical vertebrae. Humans and other mammals have only 7 cervical vertebrae, while owls have more cervical vertebrae, such as the 14 cervical vertebrae of the collared owl. Of course, its cervical spine structure is also relatively special, and the ligaments on both sides of the cervical spine are developed, so that its head can be turned to the range of 270 ° to both sides.
We who live in the city
Can you see owls around you too?
Owls love to inhabit montane forests, open grass, suburban farmland, and more. Up to now, there are 14 kinds of owls in Zhejiang, such as spotted owl, collared owl, grass owl, brown forest owl, eagle owl, etc., and the most likely thing we encounter in Hangzhou is the spotted owl.
Spotted partridge is mainly distributed in The area south of the Qinling-Huaihe river line in China, with a body length of about 22 to 25 cm, mainly feeding on insects, but also eating rodents, birds, earthworms, frogs and lizards and other animals, breeding between March and June, mostly active and foraging during the day. The emu is a small owl, there are three species of owl in China, there are two species in Zhejiang: the spotted partridge and the collared wren, the size of the collared grebe is smaller than the spotted grebe, the body length is only 15 to 17 cm, to know that the most common sparrow body length is also 12 to 15 cm.
In early June 2020, a migratory Japanese hawk owl (Northern Eagle Owl) appeared in the crowded and bustling Wulin Square in Hangzhou, standing quietly on the horizontal branches of the camphor tree during the day to rest, occasionally opening its eyes to look at passing pedestrians, and at night it catches moths and geckos near street lamps to fill its hunger.
The Japanese hawk owl in Zhejiang is still not easy to observe so exposedly, and this Japanese hawk owl stayed in the downtown area for three consecutive days. Many bird watching enthusiasts in Hangzhou try not to interfere with it, and everyone quietly comes to watch quietly and has a good addiction.
If you want to watch birds in Zhejiang, it is best to go to these places
In Hangzhou, it is suitable for bird watching all year round, and it is recommended to go to the West Lake, Hangzhou Botanical Garden, Xixi Wetland, South Lake and North Lake in Yuhang.
What we see on the water surface of Hangzhou's West Lake is basically dependent on water birds, mainly gulls, herons, cormorants and geese and ducks.
Bird life requires a relatively stable environment with little external disturbance. Birds living in the waters of the West Lake, especially the species and number of water birds are not too many, in addition to food sources, there are many tourist attractions in the West Lake, frequent boating in the waters, these reasons have a relatively large impact on the habitat of birds.
Common in the city are the bead-necked dove, the squid, the magpie, the house swallow, the white-headed grebe, the white-headed owl, the sparrow and so on.
Some birds living in urban environments will find suitable places to survive and reproduce, such as flower pots on residents' balconies and air-conditioned units can become places for them to nest. This is all the result of birds actively adapting to urban life and successfully adjusting their behavior accordingly.
There are many photography enthusiasts who like to photograph birds, what bird photography spots are there in Zhejiang Province?
The southwest region of Zhejiang, such as Songyang, Suichang, Longquan and Qingyuan in Lishui, and some forest parks and protected areas in Taishun in Wenzhou are good places to find forest birds; during the spring and autumn migration season, you can go to Wenzhou Bay Wetland, Taizhou Bay Wetland and Hangzhou Bay Wetland to photograph a large number of migratory birds, especially the plover sandpipers, which are large in number and variety, and magnificent, but due to construction projects such as beach reclamation in previous years, these water birds have faced major threats to survival; Zhejiang Haiyan, Pinghu and other small hills on the verge of Hangzhou Bay In the autumn, it is a good place to photograph and observe the migration of raptors in transit.
In fact, paying attention to long-term search and observation in your familiar environment will often have many surprises, and your personal "bird observation treasure or photography resort" will become around you.
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Source: Qianjiang Evening News Hourly News