Ornithology B/C

[Celeste]

At states for me there was one question about fimbriae, which are the tiny, comb-like edges of the feathers on on the leading edge of an owl's wing. Here's a good picture of them. It's an adaptation that owls have that allows them to fly so quietly at night. We had to explain how exactly they worked to lessen the amount of sound.

[junexia]

wow, thats really specific. so how does it exactly lessen sound?

thanks, i'll add that to my sheet.

[kjhsscioly]

wow, thats really specific. so how does it exactly lessen sound?

thanks, i'll add that to my sheet.

I believe that they absorb sound waves to keep other animals from hearing them

for example, if you threw a bouncy ball at a carpet, it wouldn't bounce, but if you threw it at a hard floor it would. If there was just feathers, the waves would bounce off quite effectively, like a ball off a hard floor.The little fuzz act like the carpet and keeps sound waves from bouncing off and being heard, because they effectively muffle the sound and reduce the amount of energy transferred back

[junexia]

thanks for the info! i cant believe we have to know such specific facts. it's making me extra nervous, not that im not already to begin with.

[FueL]

At NY states, all the B teams got their bird lists taken away and were given new ones at the competition. Luckily, we were warned the night before by our coaches and transferred the information to a page in our field guide, but it was still weird since we were only told one day prior to the competition. Did this happen to anyone else?

[paleonaps]

Well, since I was there, it happened to me. She had not read the rules or Paradox21's clarifications correctly if at all. My coach never told me, for some reason. Maybe he forgot. I could have done better than fifth if I had had my list.

[junexia]

why did they take ur lists away and give you new ones? that seems really unfair.

[soobsession]

why did they take ur lists away and give you new ones? that seems really unfair.

Not really. I guess it might not exactly correspond to the what the rules said, but since everyone had to be given new lists, then I would consider it pretty fair...

[FueL]

Not sure. When we asked her she said it was her interpretation of the rules.

Yeah, the new list made us a little disorientated as well for some reason. We couldn't find any of the birds, but everyone was pretty much on the same playing field. XD As for the test itself, halfway through we realized that we had written all the multiple choice answers in lowercase while the proctor had asked for block letters, so we were frantically erasing and rewriting our answers whenever we finished a station early.

[googlyfrog]

Just a tip: make sure you know all parts and all sides of every bird on the list. At our state competition they had stuffed birds or fake ones that looked real (couldn't tell) at each station and you couldn't flip them over or touch them and sometimes they would be at the worst possible angle. For example, you might remember the red winged blackbird b/c it has red on its wing. But if you can't see that distinguishing red because of the angle of the bird, you might not get the question. Anyways, try to find more than one distinguishing feature for each bird, that you can use for any angle the bird may be shown at. This goes for competitions with powerpoints too. This was just a problem we personally ran into.