A recent study of Great Tits may lend commentary to America’s over-subscription to government entitlements.
In Britain, the world capital of amateur ornithology roughly half of households put food out for their feathered friends, and it is estimated that around 30m of the country’s birds are given nourishment this way every year. Other places are somewhat less generous, but the general principle holds. Encouraging birds is good, and what better way to encourage them than to feed them?
Dr Amrhein’s team conducted their study in the suburbs of Oslo, in the spring of 2007. The objects of their attention were 28 male great tits, each of which was observed at dawn three times, with 16-17 days between the observations.
The purpose of the study: to see if leaving food out for birds is beneficial or detrimental.
Dr Amrhein expected that males who were being given extra food would perform better during the dawn chorus than those that were not.
The “Dawn Chorus” being the primary element of the males’ mating ritual.
To his surprise, he discovered exactly the opposite. Those who received food supplements got lazy. He and his colleagues report in Animal Behaviour that 36% of the males whose feeders were filled started singing only after the sun had already come up. Among the birds without this extra food, that happened only 10% of the time. Moreover, the effect was sustained after feeders were removed, for it was still apparent at the time of the third observation.
Turns out gratuitous entitlements make birds lazy. Do you suppose it has the same effect on Americans?
No. I will not bite. Just no.
Feed the birds, tuppence a day…
JRoosh – why do you hate tits?
Night Writer: No. I will not bite. Just no.
I’ve always felt it was my duty to keep great tits happy. I care.
I will not bite.
I bet you say that to all the tits.
A recent study of Great Tits…
curse my high school guidance counselor for not encouraging me to go into biology…
They’re real and they’re spectacular.
Am I the only one disturbed by the thought of singing tits?
I never thought of Great Tits as being so small, but there ‘ya go.
gives new meaning to the term “lazy boob”
“The objects of their attention were 28 male great tits,..”
Not that there’s anything wrong with that????????????
I am shocked [SHOCKED I SAY!!!] that no one has enlisted in the debate on our nation’s perpetual and superfluous entitlements and their effects on American society and in its stead have initiated a feckless commentary on the human female physiology.
Tisk tisk.
Next week we will discuss a similar study of the dik-dik, a small antelope of the Genus Madoqua that lives in the bushes of East Africa, Angola and Namibia.
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I am shocked [SHOCKED I SAY!!!]
Yeah, sure you are.
I am shocked [SHOCKED I SAY!!!] that no one has enlisted in the debate on our nation’s perpetual and superfluous entitlements and their effects on American society and in its stead have initiated a feckless commentary on the human female physiology.
Time to get that testosterone level checked, or at least get some blood drawn to check color to see if it’s something other than red.
Pink blood for JR?
Oh my……..