Subject: Re: Shorebird Behaviour
Date: May 2 16:03:50 1995
From: Serge Le Huitouze - serge at cs.sfu.ca



> Are there left-, and right-, legged dunlins?

I highly doubt this (though I never look at one long enough to see it
"changing" its working leg).

> Do dunlins do their one-legged stands (with the same frequency) in Florida
> and other warm waters? If so, what are they conserving there?

Maybe they are just conserving a habit :-)

By the way, it's really entertaining seeing them hopping for tens of meters
instead of getting their "resting" leg out in the cold.
I always asked myself if the overall energy balance was interesting: it seems
to me (maybe I'm completely wrong here) that it would cost less energy to
walk ten meters and then put the leg to rest again. But I probably don't
think like a Dunlin ...

--
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A bird in the bush is better than two in the hand.

Serge Le Huitouze Intelligent Software Group
email: serge at cs.sfu.ca School of Computing Science
tel: (604) 291-5423 Simon Fraser University
fax: (604) 291-3045 Burnaby, B.C., V5A 1S6 CANADA