Bird code is broken
Wartime codebreaker Alan Turing is helping scientists understand bird behaviour from beyond the grave. Boffins at the University of Sheffield used Turing’s mathematical modelling to understand why flocks of long-tailed tits settle in different areas.
The team tracked the birds around Yorkshire’s Rivelin Valley and found they avoided crowds, liked places where they had interacted with relatives and preferred the centre of woodland.
It was previously unknown why longtailed tits lived in separate parts of the same area.
The findings, published in the Journal of Animal Ecology, said the equations used to understand the birds were inspired by Turing’s work to discover how animals get spotted and striped patterns.
Study leader Natasha Ellison said: “Long-tailed tits are too small to be fitted with GPS trackers so researchers follow these tiny birds on foot.
“Without the help of these mathematical models, these behaviours wouldn’t be discovered.”