MINDING THE GAP: BODY AWARENESS IN FLYING BIRDS

Abstract

Event Abstract Back to Event MINDING THE GAP: BODY AWARENESS IN FLYING BIRDS Ingo Schiffner1* and M. Srinivasan1 1 University of Queensland, School of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering, Australia When birds fly in cluttered environments, they need to be aware of the widths of the gaps that they traverse, so that they may tailor their flight behaviour appropriately. We performed experiments with 7 male budgerigars, Melopsittacus undulatus, a small species of parrot inhabiting the dry bushlands of Australia. The birds were trained to fly down a tunnel that presented a vertically oriented gap, extending from the ceiling to the floor, positioned halfway along the tunnel’s length. The gap was created by suspending two cloth panels, each carrying a black/white checkerboard pattern. The width of the gap could be adjusted by varying the inter-panel separation. The birds’ flight behaviour was captured by a high-speed video camera mounted on the ceiling, above the gap. A total of 560 flights were filmed at 200 frames per second. Apart from the initial training, which did not involve more than 5 flights in most cases, the birds were able to traverse the gap successfully, for all of the gap widths that we tested. Only in very few cases (3%) did the birds accidentally touch one of the cloth panels while traversing the gap. The bird’s flight was characterised by a consistent wing beat cycle, which remained uninterrupted throughout the entire flight when the gap was sufficiently wide. When flying through narrower gaps, the birds showed an increasing propensity to interrupt the normal wing beat cycle by holding their wings vertically upwards, or tucked against the body, whilst traversing the gap. We analysed this behaviour quantitatively by examining the variation of the probability of wing elevation (or closure) with gap width, and the duration of interruption of the wing beat cycle as a function of gap width. The analysis reveals that birds are very precise at estimating the width of the gap in relation to their wingspan. A mere 7% (i.e. 2cm) reduction in gap width is sufficient to cause a significant transition from uninterrupted to fully interrupted flight. Furthermore, the critical width of the gap depends upon the individual bird, being narrower for birds with smaller wingspans. We conclude that birds are highly aware of their body size in relation to the gaps that they need to traverse, and use precise judgements to adjust their flight behaviour appropriately. Keywords: Bird flight, obstacle avoidance, Vision Conference: Tenth International Congress of Neuroethology, College Park. Maryland USA, United States, 5 Aug - 10 Aug, 2012. Presentation Type: Poster (but consider for Participant Symposium) Topic: Sensory: Vision Citation: Schiffner I and Srinivasan M (2012). MINDING THE GAP: BODY AWARENESS IN FLYING BIRDS. Conference Abstract: Tenth International Congress of Neuroethology. doi: 10.3389/conf.fnbeh.2012.27.00177 Copyright: The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers. They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters. The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated. Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed. For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions. Received: 28 Apr 2012; Published Online: 07 Jul 2012. * Correspondence: Dr. Ingo Schiffner, University of Queensland, School of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering, Brisbane, Australia, i.schiffner@bangor.ac.uk Login Required This action requires you to be registered with Frontiers and logged in. To register or login click here. Abstract Info Abstract The Authors in Frontiers Ingo Schiffner M. Srinivasan Google Ingo Schiffner M. Srinivasan Google Scholar Ingo Schiffner M. Srinivasan PubMed Ingo Schiffner M. Srinivasan Related Article in Frontiers Google Scholar PubMed Abstract Close Back to top Javascript is disabled. Please enable Javascript in your browser settings in order to see all the content on this page.