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This audio story is brought to you by BirdNote, a partner of The National Audubon Society. BirdNote episodes air daily on public radio stations nationwide.
Episode Transcript:
This is BirdNote.
For most birds, wings are for flying. For penguins, they’re for swimming. But for Rock Pigeons, they’re also for clapping. Startle a flock of Rock Pigeons, and you’ll hear something like this: Rock Pigeon wing claps.
When Rock Pigeons erupt into flight, some of them may slap their wings together above their bodies. It’s called a “wing clap.”
A male Rock Pigeon will do this when courting. He’ll posture and coo alongside a female ...
… 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, he snaps his wings together below his body in a burst of two to six claps per second, producing a sound that sounds remarkably like…applause.
Today’s show brought to you by the Bobolink Foundation.
For BirdNote, I’m 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. http://www.xeno-canto.org
BirdNote’s theme music was composed and played by Nancy Rumbel and John Kessler.
© 2017 Tune In to Nature.org January 2017 Narrator: Michael Stein