teardrop stoop???????????????????

[BrianM]

i ve just seen a prairie/peregrine tercil for sale and the seller has stated that hes does perfect teardrop stoops,,, ive never heard of this .. has anybody heard of this... not thinking of buying just curious...

[Wightwings]

dont know Brian unless he means the bird drops straight down.......................or brings a tear to your eye....... :roll:

[BrianM]

lol.. its just an expression that ive never heard of before

[Shaun Byrne]

Thats how the shape of a stooping falcon is described. Basically tear drop shaped, rounded at the head end and tapering off to the tip of the tail.

[Hawkmaster]

Here is my Gyr/Prairie tiercel, Vinny.

[Wightwings]

logic when you think about it thanks guys...

[BrianM]

are you sure thats not just a oven ready chicken that youve just thrown up into the air..lol...................only kidding ,superb, well done

[Bubo]

that is fantastic to see and that is just looking at the piccy, i would love to see that in real life
bubo

[Hawkmaster]

I took a video on the day above too, I will upload it some time, but it is dark, but still fast and furious!

[Bubo]

that sounds fantastic, i'm ready to watch it!!
bubo

[Jay]

I was over at Harvard University the other day talking with a friend of mine who is a nurophycologist there. He just had a student publish a paper using his reserch about the evolution of how perigrines and pidgeons evolved togeather, part of the paper talks about how a pergrine stoops. If you get a chance to read it take the chance. They put 7 years of feild reserch into it, plus a few more in the lab. I dont know the students name but the resercher is Alberto Palleroini.

They are studying the specific nurons of both species and have found that a perigrine actualy is going fast enough that it can trick even the human mind into thinking the falcon has "cloked" or turned invisable. Those that have seen a highspeed stoop know what I mean, the falcon actualy seems to disaper somtimes. At this point a pidgeon has evolved to actualy home in on the sound of the stooping falcon. Also no matter how it looks a perigrine almost always stoops in and hits from behind, at part of th stoop they actualy come into a blind spot and can not see their prey, they rely on last known positon and sound. To combat the last known positon a pidgeon has evolved to have "target" areas on the body, like a white patch near the tail. The perigrine misjudges somtimes and will miss, like not leading your target while got gun shootng. They took 700 pidgeons and imped out all 200 white feathers and compaired mortality rates from falons. The ones without the white target were much more likly to be killed by a falon. Same idea as a cotton tail rabbit, they pop up that tail and your hawk will misjudge and hit just behind or hit the bunnies ass.

Sorry about going so long on this, but it's somthing tha intrest me. If they put the paper up on the net ill throw up a link. Any faloners or just about anyoen else will find this amazing.

[Bill]

Sometimes I wonder if all the time spent trawling this site is worth it (youve got to admit, there is a lot of crud) and then along comes another little gem. Thanks Jay.

[Shaun Byrne]

I'd love to read the full paper, any idea where it can be found Jay?

[Bubo]

yep me too!!! that is amazing!

[Jay]

He mentioned the Science journal that was publishing it in, but I can't remember the name of it. If all goes well tomorrow he is giving me a lift to a meet. Hour and a half drive and Ill have a lot more info for you.

[Wightwings]

fantastic Jay more please sounds like a very onteresting read

[Varmint]

Look forwards to the info Jay, Great!

[Jay]

Well better late than never. Here is a little bit of the article, the full text is published in Nature, it tells you about it in there somwhere. This is just a quick summary. This is the guy I was mentioning with the African Crowned.

http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/2005/05.05/01-pigeon.html

[Saker-Clive]

Excellent read Jay; it works on the same principal as the eye-spots' on some butterflies and moths and some small goby fish.

[Bubo]

thanks for that jay i'm gonna sit and read through that thoroughly!!