VIRGINIA BEACH — You’ve probably walked along the beach and watched birds bomb diving for fish in the ocean, but did you know that those birds are using smell as well as vision to help them locate lunch?
Some birds also use social cues, tools and fairly sophisticated forms of communication to find food, protect their young and solve problems. So says science writer Jennifer Ackerman, author of The Bird Way: A New Look at How Birds Talk, Work, Play, Parent and Think. She will deliver the keynote speech for this year’s Winter Wildlife Festival at 7 p.m., Friday, Jan. 28.
The virtual presentation is part of the annual wildlife festival that is organized by the Virginia Beach Parks & Recreation Department along with other organizations. The festival includes activities, including boat trips, excursions and children’s activities.
They events culminate the weekend of Friday, Jan. 28, through, Sunday, Jan. 30. In addition to the presentation by Ackerman and other activities, an exhibit hall at Princess Anne Recreation Center is scheduled from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., Saturday, Jan. 29.
Ackerman will deliver a presentation including audio and video recordings and photographs of unusual bird behavior in places as diverse as Japan and Austria.
“As a writer, I go into the field with the scientists,” Ackerman said, explaining that she travels with scientists who are often on the cutting edge of contemporary research that’s revealing some surprising things about birds.
They’re a lot smarter than we previously thought, she said. “They have tiny little brains, but those brains are densely packed with cells.”
The kea parrot of New Zealand particularly fascinates Ackerman because those birds have learned to work together and to problem solve to accomplish a goal. They also play with each other, which helps them to form social bonds and avoid conflict.
“It’s marvelous how they’ve evolved,” Ackerman said.
It’s not necessary to travel to exotic places to see surprising bird behavior, though. Some of the birds that Ackerman will cover in her presentation are common in Virginia Beach, including chickadees and jays. She also finds shore birds fascinating, and her observation of Delaware shore birds inspired the book Birds by the Shore, originally published in 1995 as Notes from the Shore.
Ackerman grew up in Washington, D.C. and became interested in birding when she followed her father, a birding enthusiast, into the woods along the Potomac River on his birding expeditions.
“It was the best way to spend time with my dad,” she said.
Ackerman also wrote The Genius of Birds, published in 2016, as well as numerous articles that have been published in The New York Times, Scientific American, National Geographic and other periodicals. She has won numerous awards, including a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts and a grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Corporation.
So what advice does Ackerman have for Virginia Beach residents who hope to attract more birds to their yards?
Plant native species, she said.
Bird feeders are great, but native species attract birds because they provide food and a habitat for the birds, and they attract insects that also serve as a food source for some bird species.
“When you plant native species, you’re planting a whole ecosystem,” she said.
Register for the presentation or learn more about the festival online via www.vbgov.com/winterwildlife. Learn more about Ackerman at jenniferackermanauthor.com.
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