This audio story is brought to you by BirdNote, a partner of The 爆料公社. episodes air daily on public radio stations nationwide.
Episode Transcript:
This is BirdNote.
For most birds, wings are for flying. For penguins, they鈥檙e for swimming. But for Rock Pigeons, they鈥檙e also for clapping. Startle a flock of Rock Pigeons, and you鈥檒l hear something like this: Rock Pigeon wing claps.
When Rock Pigeons erupt into flight, some of them may slap their wings together . It鈥檚 called a 鈥渨ing clap.鈥
A male Rock Pigeon will do this when courting. He鈥檒l posture and coo alongside a female ...
鈥 then fly sharply upward in an aerial display. The brisk series of claps is a shout-out of his courtship plans to the female watching from the rooftop.
Short-eared Owls have evolved wing-clapping, too. These medium-sized owls fly by day on long wings, rounded at the tip. And mostly they fly slowly, gracefully, like enormous moths. But when a male displays to a female or attempts to warn off an intruder, together below his body in a burst of two to six claps per second, producing a sound that sounds remarkably like鈥pplause.
Today鈥檚 show brought to you by the Bobolink Foundation.
For BirdNote, I鈥檓 Michael Stein.
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Credits:
Written by Bob Sundstrom
Producer: John Kessler
Executive Producer: Sallie Bodie
Bird sounds provided by The Macaulay Library of Natural Sounds at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, New York. Recorded by [ambient sound Macauley 137503].
XC 283442 recorded by Frank Holzapfel, 247616 recorded by Krzysztof Deoniziak.
BirdNote鈥檚 theme music was composed and played by Nancy Rumbel and John Kessler.
漏 2017 Tune In to Nature.org January 2017 Narrator: Michael Stein