Birds Invade Town: La Grange, Ky. Swarmed By Black Birds

Residents in a Kentucky town are saying "Get the flock out of here" to thousands of black birds that fill the sky each night.

At dusk, the birds take flight in La Grange, Ky., and create what some locals describe as a "cloud of birds," according to TV station WAVE. The birds nest down in a wooded area for the night and depart each morning in a huge pack, reports said.

Fine-feathered friends, they're not. Residents complain that they're constantly cleaning up after the avian arrivistes, who started showing up last November in the community northeast of Louisville. Nearly everyone has heard their town compared to Alfred Hitchcock's classic film "The Birds."

To protect themselves from bird poop, some people have begun carrying umbrellas, even on sunny days, CNN reports.

The birds' unexplained presence has allegedly coincided with a surge in respiratory ailments, according to one woman who spoke with WAVE.

While nobody is sure why the birds migrated to La Grange, wildlife experts told CNN that the behavior of flying clockwise in large groups is called murmuration and is common among starlings.

In an effort to scare off the unwelcome newcomers, a married couple blasts a noisy air canon. But the birds keep coming back.

video here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/26/birds-invade-town_n_1233709.html?ref=weird-news

Baby Seal Wanders Into Home, Lounges on Couch

A baby seal entered a New Zealand' family's home through the cat door and made itself comfy on the couch.

The seal got into the waterfront home on the Bay of Plenty and crashed on the sofa with Annette Swoffer's cats, according to the New Zealand Herald. To get to its cozy spot, the baby fur seal had to cross through a residential area, cross a busy street journey under a gate and up Swoffer's long driveway, go through the cat door and up a short flight of stairs, according to the paper.

First, she saw it in the kitchen, then it made its way to the couch.

"I was in my office and I heard an awful racket down below... I thought the cats have brought a rabbit or something in so I went down and had a look - and there's a seal in my kitchen," said Swoffer. "I thought 'I'm hallucinating, this is just wrong.'"

Swoffer said the pup was "really friendly," and, according to a city animal control officer, it might have been used to hanging out in the world of humans.

Chris Clark, biodiversity programme manager for the Department of Conservation, and the man who removed the pup and set it free, had earlier in the day captured what he believed was the same seal after it ventured into another residential area and scared elderly residents.

Clark told the paper the pup had "obviously just weaned from its mum."



http://www.nbcdfw.com/news/weird/Baby-Seal-Wanders-Into-Home-Lounges-on-Couch-135667283.html

Cable guy finds sleeping bear in NJ basement

..HOPATCONG, N.J. (AP) — A cable TV repairman got quite a surprise when he walked into the basement of a New Jersey home.


There was a 500-pound bear sound asleep on the floor.

The bear had been spotted wandering in the neighborhood in Hopatcong earlier Wednesday. It's not clear how it got into the home.

The bear ambled out of the house before state Fish and Game officials arrived.

WNBC-TV in New York (http://bit.ly/rVbuTV ) reports the officials fired a tranquilizer dart at the animal, which walked a few blocks to the Missouri Trail before it was knocked out.

Officials plan to relocate the bear.

No one was injured.

http://news.yahoo.com/cable-guy-finds-sleeping-bear-nj-basement-133823975.html

'Lazy' pigeons flock to ride Stockholm metro

A flock of Stockholm pigeons are using public transport for their daily jaunt foraging for food in the dumpsters and rubbish bins at a nearby shopping centre.

”They stand calmly at the platform and wait for the subway train to arrive. When it does they get on, travel one stop, jump off and then head for their favourite haunts,” Rasmus Sandsten, press spokeperson for underground operator MTR, told The Local.
The pigeons are believed to live somewhere near Farsta Strand, in south Stockholm, and travel daily one stop to nearby shopping centre Farsta Centrum where there are many cafés and plenty of food to be found.

According to Sandsten, the most likely explanation is that one pigeon first got stuck on the metro by accident.

”Then, when it saw where it ended up it thought; 'this was a great idea'. Sooner or later more of them followed suit,” Sandsten said.

However, the birds seem to choose other methods of transport for their return journey.

”We haven't been told of as many incidents of pigeons on the tube on the way back, so we think they fly on their way back,” Sandsten said.

It is not clear how or when these pigeons first started to use public transport, but according to Sandsten, train drivers have said that they have seen pigeons using the Stockholm metro system as early as the 1990's, when a similar pigeon gang regularly roamed the suburb of Hökarängen.

”And since then the birds have been spotted getting on the subway at stations all over Stockholm,” Sandsten said.

AT MTR, the policy among the drivers are to try to shoo away the birds if they happen to see one trying to get on, but not if it would mean that the departure of the train would be delayed.

Biologist Lars-Åke Janzon at the Swedish Museum of Natural History (Naturhistoriska Riksmuseet), told local paper Mitt i Söderort that although not especially clever, birds are very good at imitating each other's actions.

Therefore, Janzon thinks that tube staff should persevere in their efforts to shoo the birds away, or he fears that the number of pigeons using public transport will grow significantly.

”People are scared of everything, And that will include an enterprising pigeon or two. Many believe they carry disease, but that's not true. Not even their droppings are especially harmful. On the other hand, one might think it is sticky and disgusting if there is a lot of bird poo on the tube,” Janzon told the paper.

However, according to Sandsten drivers are seldom aware of the little stowaways before they get off at their destination.

And so far the company hasn't received one single complaint from passengers about the freeloading birds.

”They behave well while on board and don't seem to be making much of a mess. They also choose to travel later in the day, cleverly avoiding rush hour,” Sandsten told The Local.

Rebecca Martin
http://www.thelocal.se/37278/20111110/#

Injured cat 'does a Lassie' to lead RSPCA to her newborn kittens

A cunning cat who was thrown out of a moving car led her RSPCA rescuer to her newborn kittens to save their lives, in a scene evoking memories of the TV adventures of Lassie the dog.

The pregnant cat, named Jolie by vets, was seen being cruelly dumped in the town of March, Cambridgeshire.

When the RSPCA found her, she was taken in to be treated for her injuries but had to be returned to the scene because it was clear she'd just had kittens, who had no chance of survival if left to fend
for themselves.

After being left back where she was found, the clever cat meowed loudly until the RSPCA officer began to follow her across a field.

'When she started to get really vocal at first I thought she was calling to the kittens, but then it became clear that she was actually calling to me,' Inspector Knight told Ely Weekly News.

'I began to follow her and she took me through the rear garden, across a ploughed field and into a farm yard. All the time she was calling me and waiting for me to follow.

'She then took me into an old farm machinery barn and led me to behind a stack of old wood and there were her four kittens.'

Inspector Knight said there was no way he would have found the kittens, who still had their eyes closed, by himself because they were so far away from where their mother was found.

The tiny kittens, who were badly dehydrated, are now at the RSPCA Block Fen Animal Centre, where they will stay until they are all fit and healthy and ready to be rehomed.
.
http://www.metro.co.uk/weird/877810-injured-cat-does-a-lassie-to-lead-rspca-to-her-newborn-kittens

Crows use mirrors to find food

Clever New Caledonian crows can use mirrors to find food, according to scientists.

Researchers from the University of Auckland, New Zealand, tested wild-caught crows' reactions to mirrors.

The crows did not recognise themselves but found cached food items by studying their reflections.

The results put the birds in an elite group of species - which includes primates and elephants - known to be able to process mirror information.

New Caledonian crows (Corvus moneduloides) are known for their intelligent and innovative use of tools, such as twigs, which they use to fish nutritious insects out of holes and crevices.

Mirror experiments with other members of the same family of birds, the corvids, have found that magpies recognise their reflections but jungle crows do not.

In this study, published in the journal Animal Behaviour, psychologists examined the recognition skills of the notoriously clever New Caledonian crows.

Scientists captured 10 wild birds and placed them in large cages in order to record their behaviour in response to mirrors.

All the crows reacted to seeing their reflections as if they were encountering another crow; the birds made rapid head movements, raised their tails and even attacked the reflection.

Lead researcher Felipe S Medina Rodriguez said the crows' antagonistic reaction to their mirror image "was not surprising". He explained that an animal usually had extensive exposure to mirrors before it began to display an understanding that the image it was seeing was itself.

When the crows moved away from the mirror and lost sight of their reflection, they frequently searched behind the mirror to locate the "other" bird.

The researchers think that the behaviour was probably caused by the birds' lack of experience of mirrors; similar reactions have been recorded in primate infants and two-year-old children.

The second part of the experiment, though, revealed some surprising findings.

The scientists devised a task to test whether the crows could use mirrors to locate cubes of meat that were hidden from direct view.

All of the crows tested appeared to understand how the meat's reflection correlated to its location.

"We were surprised by how quickly the crows learnt to use a mirror reflection to locate hidden food," said Mr Medina.

"Usually, it takes longer for an animal to start using the properties of mirrors to have access to otherwise non-visible objects."

Some of the crows were more adept than others, and Mr Medina suggested that the difference in ability proved that they were not using their sense of smell to find the food.

"Importantly, our best crow, a female juvenile called Obo, was not able to find the food when the mirror was reversed. This showed that the crows were probably solving the problem by relying exclusively on the visual information available in the mirror," said Mr Medina.

Wild skills

Previous studies have shown that African grey parrots, great apes, dolphins, monkeys and Asian elephants all share our ability to process mirror information.

But according to Mr Medina, the New Caledonian crows are unique in the group because they are wild animals.

"These animals are usually kept in highly enriched environments, and have been subject to prolonged human contact and training," he told BBC Nature. "[So] we cannot know how much of their problem solving skill comes from their intensive experience in captivity and human experimentation and how much would develop naturally in the wild.

"What our study has now revealed is that wild-caught New Caledonian crows can process mirror information in a primate-like fashion, and that this ability develops very quickly without extensive mirror exposure."

New Caledonian crows are named after the islands on which they are found in the South Pacific Ocean to the east of Australia and north of New Zealand.

Heads together
Scientists have also recently been investigating the intelligence of another well-known bird family: the tits.

In a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers from Oxford University, UK, looked at the problem-solving abilities of great tits (Parus major) and blue tits (Cyanistes caeruleus).

Food dispensers that required the birds to pull a lever in order to receive a reward were placed in woodlands as "puzzles" for the birds.

Dr Julie Morand-Ferron and Dr John Quinn found that larger, mixed-species flocks of the birds solved the problems more quickly and efficiently than smaller groups of birds.

The zoologists suggested that larger groups were more likely to contain a "skilled individual" that could operate the device for the benefit of the whole group.

"For these social songbirds, 30 heads are almost always better than 20, and 20 better than 10, when it comes to solving problems," said Dr Morand-Ferron.

"Previous research has suggested that this effect, sometimes called the 'pool of competence' occurs in humans, but this is the first direct evidence that a similar effect occurs in non-human animals."

Great tits and blue tits highly social birds that are found in a variety of different habitats across Europe.

"It may be that in species that are always looking to move into new areas, and so confront new problems, there are many benefits to being in a gang with individuals with different skills and personalities," explained Dr Morand-Ferron.
By Ella Davies Reporter, BBC Nature
http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/14897544

Dolphin baby given 'ticking off'

Dolphin watchers in west Wales have spotted unusual behaviour as a female repeatedly tossed a newborn calf into the air.

They say it is the first time such 'violent' behaviour has been seen by a mother in Cardigan Bay although males dolphins have been known to kill their young.

Dr Peter Evans, from the Sea Watch Foundation, said it might have been a case of a severe telling off due to the two to three day old calf wandering too far away.

"She was nosing it away in a particular direction, then suddenly she threw the infant right up into the air, and then did this about three times," he explained.

"Normally when you see something like an animal thrown into the air it's an aggressive action by a male dolphin.

"In this instance it was the mother doing it (the attacking), and she was doing it very rigorously.

"It was moving away, several times, from the mother, and perhaps it was straying too far and she wanted to keep a close eye on it."

Dr Evans said this may have been because there were humans nearby or other adult dolphins.

"It was possible a got a strong scolding because of that, and the animal was unharmed at the end," he added.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-14921415

Drunk Moose Gets Stuck in Tree

The silly moose suffered the fate of many an intoxicated human after a night of heavy drinking - and found himself in a very embarrassing predicament.

Police believe the inebriated elk got into a state after eating fermented apples, and got stuck while trying to reach fruit higher up the tree.

The binge-drinking beast somehow managed to wedge itself into the branches of the tree with all four legs off the ground.

Fire crews had to chop down the tree to help free the animal from the branches.

By Alex Pielak, Metro.co.uk
Read more: http://www.metro.co.uk/weird/874733-moose-drunk-on-apples-gets-stuck-in-tree#ixzz1XMPsaZzX

Fish-catching trick may be spreading among dolphins

PERTH, Australia (Reuters) - Dolphins in one western Australian population have been observed holding a large conch shell in their beaks and using it to shake a fish into their mouths -- and the behavior may be spreading.

Researchers from Murdoch University in Perth were not quite sure what they were seeing when they first photographed the activity, in 2007, in which dolphins would shake conch shells at the surface of the ocean.

"It's a fleeting glimpse -- you look at it and think, that's kind of weird," said Simon Allen, a researcher at the university's Cetacean Research Unit.

"Maybe they're playing, maybe they're socializing, maybe males are presenting a gift to a female or something like that, maybe the animals are actually eating the animal inside."

But researchers were more intrigued when they studied the photos and found the back of a fish hanging out of the shell, realizing that the shaking drained the water out of the shells and caused the fish that was sheltering inside to fall into the dolphins' mouths.

A search through records for dolphins in the eastern part of Shark Bay, a population that has been studied for nearly 30 years, found roughly half a dozen sightings of similar behavior over some two decades.

Then researchers saw it at least seven times during the four-month research period starting this May, Allen said.

"There's a possibility here -- and it's speculation at this stage -- that this sort of change from seeing it six or seven times in 21 years to seeing it six or seven times in three months gives us that tantalizing possibility that it might be spreading before our very eyes," he added.

"It's too early to say definitively yet, but we'll be watching very closely over the next couple of field seasons."

The Shark Bay dolphin population is already unusual for having developed two foraging techniques, one of which involves the dolphin briefly beaching itself to grab fish after driving them up onto the shore.

The other is "sponging" -- in which the dolphins break off a conical bit of sponge and fit it over their heads like a cap, shielding them as they forage for food on the sea floor.

But both of these spread "vertically," mainly through the female dolphin population, from mother to daughter. The intriguing thing about this new behavior with the conch shells is that it might be spreading "horizontally," Allen said.

"If it spreads horizontally, then we would expect to see it more often and we'd expect to see it between 'friends'," he added, noting that dolphins are known for having preferences in terms of companions and whom they spend time with.

"Most of the sightings from this year are in the same habitat where we first saw it in 2007, and a couple of the individuals this year are known to associate with the ones that we saw doing it a year or two ago."

The next step would be not only to observe the behavior again in another season but also to try and gather evidence Of deliberate actions on the part of the dolphins.

"If we could put some shells in a row or put them facing down or something like that and then come back the next day, if we don't actually see them do it but find evidence that they've turned the shell over or make it into an appealing refuge for a fish, then that implies significant forward planning on the dolphins' parts," Allen said.

"The nice idea is that there is this intriguing possibility that they might manipulate the object beforehand. Then that might change using the shell as just a convenient object into actual tool use," he added.

(Reporting by Elaine Lies; Editing by Alex Richardson)

http://news.yahoo.com/fish-catching-trick-may-spreading-among-dolphins-080748681.html

Bobcat swaps sharp teeth and claws of mountain lion for 5cm cactus spikes

When you're running for your life you don't have time to think about protecting your undercarriage. Take this bobcat, which clambered up a 15m (50ft) giant saguaro cactus and stayed there for six hours to escape a mountain lion.
His smart manoeuvre left the larger predator circling the base of the 300-year-old plant, where he stared up and growled before giving up and walking off.

The bobcat refused to crawl back down for several hours, instead sitting on the cactus’s 5cm (2in) spikes. Amazingly, it appeared to have suffered hardly a scratch.

The scenes were taken in the Sonoran Desert, Arizona, by photographer Curt Fonger, 69, who said: ‘The mountain lion probably had cubs, the bobcat had intruded on its territory and she gave chase to warn the bobcat not to come close to her young family.

‘I was astonished that the bobcat was on such a high prickly perch. In fact, the beautiful creature seemed quite content and was lying on top of the cactus.’

Read more: http://www.metro.co.uk/weird/873406-bobcat-swaps-sharp-teeth-and-claws-of-mountain-lion-for-5cm-cactus-spikes#ixzz1WK8b5til

Fox uses conveyor belt as fun slide

Some animals do the darnedest of things - like this smiling fox, who was captured using an abandoned conveyor belt as a play slide.

The four-legged scavenger was spotted by photographer Duncan Usher while he was in the German village of Bursfelde, taking pictures in an unused gravel quarry.
According to Usher, the fox loves to speed down the chute and actually trotted back to the top several more times while he was taking pictures.

Most UK residents hate the thought of returning home late at night to find the dreaded urban fox rummaging through their bin.

But it seems this little character would be most welcome on the streets.
Another animal recently partaking in human-esque activities was one clever orangutan from Japan, who used a wash cloth to clean his face and cool down during the heat of the day.
The amazing footage was captured by a stunned guest visiting the Tama Zoological Park in Tokyo and the clip has since gone viral across the world.

Read more: http://www.metro.co.uk/weird/873603-grinning-fox-uses-conveyor-belt-as-fun-slide#ixzz1WK7vtj00

Kangaroo goes on lingerie theft rampage in Czech Republic

Benji may look cute but he certainly showed a knack for pinching clothes when he hopped from yard to yard and took only the sexiest items off clotheslines.

The two year-old marsupial, who lives in Prague, was only caught after a woman looked out of her window and saw the creature making off with a pair of her favourite undies.
Police knew Benji was on the loose after his owner contacted them, but when they began to receive calls from residents reporting washing line thefts they didn't put two and two together.
A police spokesman explained: 'We had a call from Benji's owner saying his pet kangaroo had escaped. At the same time we started getting reports of a number of thefts from washing lines,
'We didn't think they could possibly be related until he was caught red-handed.'
Benji's relieved owner Petr Hlabovic, 35, said: 'I'm very relieved to have him back. I've got no idea what he thought he was up to - he certainly didn't pick up the habit from me.'


Read more: http://www.metro.co.uk/weird/873087-kangaroo-goes-on-lingerie-theft-rampage#ixzz1VrHHAjfW

Mummy's boys exist in bird families too

Mummy's boys may not be solely confined to human families. Instead, a new study suggests birds have the same prejudices.

Scientists have discovered that zebra finch mothers favour their sons over their daughters, so male chicks end up getting fed more than their sisters do. But fathers don't appear to be as biased.
The end result is that male chicks get more food than females.

'If a female has paired up with a particularly sexy male, it's in her interests to make sure her sons are well cared for, because the odds are that they'll grow up to be just as successful as their dad. So her genes are more likely to be passed to the next generation,' explains Dr Ian Hartley from Lancaster University, co-author of the study.

But the findings suggest that zebra finches know which chicks are male and which are female. This is surprising because, until now, researchers thought parents can't tell the difference between males and females until they get their adult plumage.

'We don't know how they know, but it could be that because they can see ultraviolet light, they can see things in their chicks that we can't. Or maybe male and female chicks make different calls when they beg for food,' says Hartley.

While it might seem surprising that zebra finch mothers should favour their sons, Hartley and his colleagues say that what's more surprising is that the evidence for this has, until now, eluded researchers.

The whole area of conflict over how much care each parent puts into raising its young is a hot topic in evolutionary biology right now, with the theory predicting that each parent will invest differently.
'Females put a lot of energy into producing and incubating eggs; the males don't. But males put their energies into attracting or defending females. These different costs of reproduction – and the need to save some energy for future breeding attempts – have knock-on effects to how the mother and father invest in their offspring,' explains Hartley.

There's also tension between parents and their offspring. When parents arrive at a nest with food, chicks use loud and elaborate begging displays to try to manipulate their parents' decisions as to who gets fed. But parents are wise to this. It's hard work bringing food back for chicks, so parents have to apply rules for who gets fed to prevent particularly greedy individuals from monopolising their efforts.

Bias towards gender

'Instead of a nice image of happy families, it's more realistic to think of a nest as a battleground,' says Hartley. 'There's conflict between parents, between parents and offspring, and on top of this, there's competition for food between siblings.'

Previous research has found that parents generally prefer to feed larger chicks, and those that beg hardest. And although researchers have demonstrated that male and female parents prefer to feed different types of chicks, teasing out any kind of bias towards gender isn't straightforward. Scientists have focussed on birds, 'because it's much easier to measure and analyse parental care in birds than it is in, say, mammals,' explains Hartley.

To find out if the evidence backs up the theory, he and other colleagues from Lancaster designed an experiment that let them compare parents' feeding patterns with begging behaviour in broods with chicks of different sizes and ages. This meant they could discount any effects of size or age. In total, they analysed in detail video images of around 9000 'feeding events' at 28 zebra finch nests.

Unsurprisingly, the researchers found that the more chicks beg, the more likely they are to be fed more by their parents. But as begging gets louder and more intense, they found that the sex of both chicks and parents determines who gets fed the most: female zebra finches provide more food for sons as their begging intensifies, but fathers feed both sons and daughters equal amounts of food.

Hartley says there are plenty of questions that are still unanswered, like: how do parents work out the sex of their offspring, and do these rules apply to other birds?

'It would also be interesting to find out the long-term consequences of parentally biased favouritism in these birds,' he says.

The study is published in Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology.

Orangutan rides bicycle to preach cycling safety

Meet Bam the road safety primate who's on a mission to make sure children in Thailand wear their helmet whilst cycling.
The eight-year-old Orangutan loves to cycle around when he gets the chance and was enlisted by the Thailand government to help spread a campaign message about accident prevention.

Launched on Friday at the Dusit Zoo in Bangkok, Bam dressed in a bright yellow t-shirt rode his favourite blue bike (courtesy of some training wheels) through the crowd of thrilled onlookers.
He was also joined by two freewheelin' friends, but it seems one forgot to wear her helmet, which is a big no-no for Bam who always wears his smiling panda hat whenever he hits the road.

Road welfare is a serious issue in Thailand with a staggering number of daily cases being recorded. In 2010, daily road accidents in Thailand averaged 559 cases a day with 616 persons injured and 52 killed.


Read more: http://www.metro.co.uk/weird/872203-orangutan-rides-bike-to-preach-cycle-safety#ixzz1V86EBBbi


Read more: http://www.metro.co.uk/weird/872203-orangutan-rides-bike-to-preach-cycle-safety#ixzz1V86BhYUD

Moscow's wild dogs ride subways to city centre in search of food

Each morning, like clockwork, they board the subway, off to begin their daily routine amidst the hustle and bustle of the city.

But these aren’t just any daily commuters. These are stray dogs who live in the outskirts of Moscow Russia and commute on the underground trains to and from the city centre in search of food scraps.

Then after a hard day scavenging and begging on the streets, they hop back on the train and return to the suburbs where they spend the night.

Experts studying the dogs, who usually choose the quietest carriages at the front and back of the train, say they even work together to make sure they get off at the right stop – after learning to judge the length of time they need to spend on the train.

Scientists believe this phenomenon began after the Soviet Union collapsed in the 1990s, and Russia’s new capitalists moved industrial complexes from the city centre to the suburbs.

Dr Andrei Poiarkov, of the Moscow Ecology and Evolution Institute, said: “These complexes were used by homeless dogs as shelters, so the dogs had to move together with their houses. Because the best scavenging for food is in the city centre, the dogs had to learn how to travel on the subway – to get to the centre in the morning, then back home in the evening, just like people.”

Dr Poiarkov told how the dogs like to play during their daily commute. He said: “They jump on the train seconds before the doors shut, risking their tails getting jammed. They do it for fun. And sometimes they fall asleep and get off at the wrong stop.”

The dogs have also amazingly learned to use traffic lights to cross the road safely, said Dr Poiarkov. And they use cunning tactics to obtain tasty morsels of shawarma, a kebab-like snack popular in Moscow.

With children the dogs “play cute” by putting their heads on youngsters’ knees and staring pleadingly into their eyes to win sympathy – and scraps.

Dr Poiarkov added: “Dogs are surprisingly good psychologists.”

By Elaine Furst For Dog Files
http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/2apKTx/www.thedogfiles.com/2011/03/21/moscow%E2%80%99s-wild-dogs-ride-subways-to-city-center-in-search-of-food/

Patches the dog on death row saves his own life by singing Happy Birthday

They say that every dog has its day, but the days of Patches the mongrel seemed numbered - until he was able to sing Happy Birthday.


Patches was due to be put down at a dog pound because no-one who could prove they knew him had come forward.

That was until a dog foster carer called at Mildura pound in Australia, where 15-year-old Patches was being kept on death row and tried to get him to sing Happy Birthday. He obliged - and his life was spared.

If that sounds like a shaggy dog story, well, you should hear him howl in accompaniment whenever anyone strikes up a rendering of the birthday tune.


Patches' elderly master, Eddie Vassallo, an Italian migrant living in northern Victoria, used to spend hours sitting with his pet on his knee.

But when 82-year-old Eddie died three months ago, Patches got caught up in the confusion that followed and ended up in a pound

Working on behalf of Mr Vassallo's daughter, who lives in far-away Sydney, Kaye Grivec, a Victorian Dog Rescue foster carer, helped in the hunt for the much-loved pooch.


When she arrived at the pound, Miss Grivec was asked if she could prove that Patches belonged to someone.

'There's only one way to find out,' said Miss Grivec, and started singing Happy Birthday to the dog.

'At first, he had a sad, faraway look in his eyes, just like he was thinking about something or missing someone,' said Miss Grivec.

'Then he just put his head back and started howling along with me, and I just burst into tears of joy,' she told Melbourne's Herald-Sun newspaper.

Marie Vassallo, daughter of Patches' late master, was overjoyed when she learned that the dog's enjoyment of Happy Birthday had saved his life.

'When they finished singing, Dad would say "bravo, bravo, Patches" and Patches just loved it," she said.

'Also, when it was anyone's birthday, Dad would telephone them and he would sing Happy Birthday to them with Patches singing along.

'It was Patches' favourite song and it became a family tradition for Dad and Patches to sing it together.'

When she learned that Patches had disappeared following her father's death, Miss Vassallo was heartbroken.

'He'd been impounded for quite a while and his time on death row was almost up.

'Thank goodness he's been found and saved and it was all due to that song.

'We're now arranging to have Patches brought up to Sydney to live out his life with the family.'

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2017733/Patches-dog-death-row-saves-life-singing-Happy-Birthday.html#ixzz1TDuILSej

Why Dolphins Wear Sponges

In 1984, researchers spotted dolphins doing something unusual in Shark Bay, Western Australia. When the animals got hungry, they ripped a marine basket sponge from the sea floor and fitted it over their beaks like a person would fit a glove over a hand. The scientists suspected that as the dolphins foraged for fish, the sponges protected their beaks, or rostra, from the rocks and broken chunks of coral that litter the sea floor, making this behavior the first example of tool use in this species.


But why do dolphins go to all of this trouble when they could simply snag a fish from the open sea?

The answer, researchers hypothesize and report online today in PLoS ONE, is that the bottom-dwelling fish are a lot more nutritious. Some species also don't have swim bladders, gas chambers that help other fish control their buoyancy as they travel up and down the water column. In the Bahamas, where dolphins are also known to forage for bottom-dwelling fish, dolphins hunt partly by echolocating these bladders, which give off a strong acoustic signal. That helps the cetaceans find prey even when it's buried in sea sand.

But bottom-dwelling fish, such as barred sandperch, which are favored by some Shark Bay dolphins, don't have swim bladders and so are harder to find with echolocation. The sea floor is not nearly as soft here as it is in the Bahamas, so if dolphins want to probe for these fish, they risk injuring their rostra.

Enter the sea sponge. Some ingenious Shark Bay dolphin figured out that by prodding the sediments with a sponge attached to its beak, it could stir up these swim bladder-less fish without hurting itself.

To find out more about the types of fish that might respond to this "sponging" technique, Eric Patterson, a graduate student in behavioral ecology at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., asked a colleague to try it in Shark Bay while he filmed the results. The pair fitted a marine basket sponge on the end of a pole and dove into the same channels where the dolphins hunt. "We had to switch sponges after every five to six dives because they were torn to bits by the sediments," Patterson says. Although not nearly as graceful as sponging dolphins, "which are really elegant in their moves," Patterson says, the human sponger nonetheless managed to scare up a hidden prey fish every 9 minutes. "The prey are numerous and reliable," Patterson says, "and their behavior is so predictable—they always dart out of the sands—that they make this hunting behavior worthwhile for the dolphins."

Patterson has also observed the sponging dolphins. After a fish emerges from its hiding spot, it swims a few meters away and doesn't immediately rebury itself. That interlude gives the dolphin just enough time to drop its sponge, surface to get a breath, and dive again to snag the fish, most of which are about 12 centimeters in length. "They are not a huge prey, but are very nutritious," Patterson says, because fish lacking swim bladders typically have a high lipid content.

Not every dolphin in Shark Bay hunts with sponges. "It's primarily done by females," says Janet Mann, a behavioral ecologist also at Georgetown University and Patterson's dissertation adviser. She believes the female dolphins invented the method because of the "selective pressures they face while raising a calf as long as they do," about 4 to 5 years. "These clever dolphins have figured out a way to target fish that other dolphins cannot," she says, adding that even the local fishermen do not catch, or even know about, this particular species. Mann's previous research has shown that dolphin mothers pass the sponging method to their daughters and some of their sons, rare evidence of a cultural tradition in an animal other than humans. The team has documented three generations of sponging dolphins.

The study provides a "better understanding of the why and how of sponging" by the Shark Bay dolphins, says Louis Herman, a cognitive psychologist and professor emeritus at the University of Hawaii, Manoa. The work "adds to previously documented" examples of "innovation by this highly intelligent species." Patterson's and Mann's results also "reinforce a pattern" often seen in other tool-using animals, says Simon Reader, a behavioral biologist at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. "Tool use appears to be almost a last option, taken when other options fail or are unavailable," he says, noting that woodpecker finches in the Galápagos Islands "turn to tool use only in arid areas," wielding cactus spines to extract grubs from tree branches. Using tools takes time and energy, Reader says, and animals tend to rely on them only when there's a guaranteed payoff, such as turning up a fatty fish that most other dolphins (and fishermen) know nothing about.

*This article has been corrected. Researchers first researchers spotted dolphins putting sponges over their rostra in Shark Bay in 1984, not 1991.


by Virginia Morell
http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2011/07/why-dolphins-wear-sponges.html?ref=hp

Monkeys in India take over hospital after mastering automatic doors

Patients at an Indian hospital have been receiving some surprise visitors after monkeys learned how to operate its automatic doors.

The All India Institute of Medical Sciences in New Delhi recently installed a new entry system – with unforeseen consequences.

Local rhesus macaque monkeys soon worked out how to use the motion-censor doors and have since been running amok in the wards, kitchens and corridors.

They have terrorised patients in the neurosurgery department and recovery rooms, stealing food, playing with medical equipment, attacking staff and generally causing chaos.

An unnamed doctor told the Times of India about one of his encounters with the red-bottomed monkeys.

'I was at the patient recovery room when a nurse cried out that a monkey had sneaked in,' he said.

'The monkey had somehow entered the main corridor and was hiding in the false roof. As soon as the security guard moved away, it jumped inside. The doors open once they detect any movement, and this is how the simian got in.'

With an average of one monkey bite case in the hospital every week, authorities have taken steps to scare off the macaques.

They have hired two larger monkeys - grey langurs – to chase them away.

Killing or trapping the macaques is not an option, due to their association with the Hindu deity Hanuman.

http://www.metro.co.uk/weird/868820-monkeys-in-india-take-over-hospital-after-mastering-automatic-doors

Cat steals from everyone in San Mateo neighborhood

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/06/19/BAIN1JVID8.DTL

Lucky for Dusty he's a cat. Otherwise he'd surely be in jail, or at least a 12-step program. The San Mateo feline has pilfered more than 600 items from neighbors - behavior so odd it's baffled and delighted animal experts and made Dusty a minor celebrity.

"It's extreme, but it's absolutely adorable," said Marilyn Krieger, a cat behavior consultant in Redwood City. "I can't say exactly why he's doing it, except it has to do with mixed-up neurotransmitters. I think it's a form of OCD." Dusty's nocturnal heists started about four years ago, a year after his owners adopted him as a kitten from the Peninsula Humane Society.

"I noticed a piece of latex glove on the bed one morning and told my husband he should do a better job cleaning up his work stuff," said Jean Chu, a dentist. "He said, 'It wasn't me. I think it was the cat.' "

After that, Chu and her husband, Jim Coleman, were greeted each morning with a tableau of neighborhood detritus on their doorstep: gloves, towels, Crocs, swim trunks, Safeway bags, bubble wrap, a Giants cap and other backyard sundries.

Chu started keeping a log of Dusty's haul, which averages three or four items a night. His record spree is 11 in a 24-hour period. "It's work. Every time I go out to get the paper in the morning, I have to pick up after him," said Coleman, an artist. "Sometimes he brings things
that are sort of expensive. I get a little worried about that."

As for the booty, Chu washes it and hunts for the rightful owner. If she can't find the owner, she stores the loot in boxes in the dining room. The boxes are now piled two deep.

"He stole my bikini," said Kelly McLellan, who lives a few doors up the street. "He did it in two trips. He was very focused on keeping the ensemble. When it went missing I wasn't worried, though. I knew where to go."

McLellan's son, Ethan, 6, lost a Nerf rocket football.

"I looked for it, but I didn't know where it went," he said. "Then I remembered. The cat took it."
Stephanie Somers' family lost six bathing suits and countless shorts, towels and car wash sponges. "We don't leave anything out anymore," she said. "But we don't mind. We like
Dusty." A year ago Chu contacted People magazine about her kleptomaniac kitty, and a star was born. Dusty has been on the David Letterman show and Animal Planet, and infrared footage of his nighttime antics are a hit on YouTube - there's even video of him dragging home a brassiere. The public can meet Dusty at an adoption event June 25 at the Peninsula Humane Society, where he will be posing for photos and allowing fans to pet him.

Dusty's predilection for theft is rare but not unheard of, animal experts said. Some cats will bring home half-dead mice, acting on their instinct to teach kittens to hunt. Dusty's habit is likely related to that somehow, minus the kittens and mice. "It's like a predatory instinct gone awry," said Richmond cat consultant Mikel Delgado. "He's obviously very bold." Anika Liljenwall, behavior associate at the Peninsula Humane Society, said Dusty's predatory instinct has become "crossed in his head."

"In his mind he's caught something and he's bringing it home to share," she said.

Neuroses aside, everyone agrees Dusty seems to be a perfectly happy and healthy cat. "We always try to find meaning in what animals do," Liljenwall said. "But maybe he just does this because it's fun."

Cat survives ride in engine; tries again

Anglesey cat's 30 minute car engine trip.



A cat which crawled into a car engine space to keep warm has survived a 30 minute journey after its unwitting owner travelled to work.

The black cat called Giggs was found after his owner's colleagues heard a meowing noise coming from her car.

Giggs's owner Cerian Griffith, from Anglesey, said despite missing a few claws, the cat was unscathed.

And incredibly Giggs did the same thing a second time, but was found before Ms Griffith left home.

"I hadn't thought anything about the fact that I hadn't seen the cat before I left for work," said Ms Griffith, who works at Ysgol David Hughes secondary school in Menai Bridge.

"A colleague said he'd heard a meowing noise coming from my car but I thought he was pulling my leg, until my mum sent me a text to say the cat was missing."

Ms Griffith said she immediately put two and two together.

"I went across the yard shouting 'puss, puss' but there was no response and I thought he must have been a goner," she said.

When she opened the bonnet however "a head popped up" and Giggs was perched to the side of the Vauxhall Corsa's engine.

"He was just sitting there, and I can't understand how he managed to stay there as my journey involves going around a few roundabouts and along the A55," she added.

Ms Griffith said she then had to "embarrassingly" ask the head teacherfor permission to take the cat home.

"He was lovely about it, and the cat fell asleep as he was being driven home," she added.

'Fast asleep'
Despite being 13-years-old, and not in the best of health, Giggs survived unscathed, apart from missing "a couple of claws".

The experience has not made him any wiser though as he was again foundin the engine a second time.

"My mum said she'd seen him near the car and for me to check," she said.

"I didn't think he'd do it again, but there he was, fast asleep.

"I've no idea how many lives he has, but that one journey must have used up at least three," she added
An RSPCA spokeswoman said it was not uncommon during cold weather for small animals to crawl beneath cars and climb up inside the engine compartment, seeking warmth and shelter.

"If you do discover an animal hitchhiker - and you do not know its identity - we would advise people to contact the RSPCA 0300 123 4999, and we can try to help trace the owner," added the spokeswoman.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-north-west-wales-11973567