Dr. Chris Clark Presents

Animal Aeroacoustics: The Study of How Flying Animals Make Sounds with Their Wings

Originally an expert on the sounds hummingbirds make with their feathers in displays, Dr. Clark has begun to unravel the mystery of how and why owls have evolved quiet flight. Quiet flight seems to be a hunting aid, as the birds that have it (including nightbirds, American Kestrel, Harriers, Kites, and of course, Owls) are generally predators. Quiet flight evolves either so that the owl can hear its prey better (the ‘Owl ear’ hypothesis), or so that the owl can approach its prey in stealth (the ‘mouse ear’ hypothesis). Although not mutually exclusive, these two hypotheses make certain predictions that differ, such as whether owls that hunt through snow have need of quiet flight. Great Gray Owl, the ‘Ghost of the North’, is a snow-hunting specialist. Dr. Clark will present recent research on how Great Gray Owl hunts through snow, which both attenuates (muffles) and refracts the sound of prey. Finally, Dr. Clark will end with the future directions he plans to further unravel how and why owls (and other birds) have evolved to have quiet flight.

Great Grey Owl. Photo by Matti Suopajärvi.

Dr. Chris Clark grew up in Seattle, where he taught himself to birdwatch in the Seattle Arboretum at age 14. He received his Ph.D. at the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology at UC Berkeley in 2009, where he studied hummingbird flight and courtship displays. Near the end of his Ph.D. he published a paper “Anna’s Hummingbird chirps with its tail”, about experiments showing that it was the tail-feathers that make the dive sound of Anna’s Hummingbird. He then did a postdoc at the Peabody Museum at Yale University, where he performed research on how feathers make sound, both in many species of hummingbirds in North, Central, and South America; and also did experiments on how feathers make sound in other birds, such as Smithornis Broadbills, or Tyrannus flycatchers. In 2013 he began a faculty position at the University of California, Riverside, where he is now an associate professor. At UCR he teaches Ornithology and Vertebrate Natural History, both of which include field-trips that open the eyes of undergraduate students to the vertebrate diversity of California. While much of his research is on hummingbirds, such as on the Allen’s x Rufous hummingbird hybrid zone, or song learning in hummingbirds, he also has current projects on ‘wing clapping’ in nightjars, courtship displays of flycatchers, and a new grant from the National Science Foundation to study how owls hunt. In his free time he and his wife enjoy international travel, hiking, and camping with their two children, Elliot and Calliope.

 

Monday, September 16 at 7:00 PM

at the Noyo Center Field Station

32430 N. Harbor Dr, Fort Bragg, CA