Date of Submission
Spring 2024
Academic Program
Biology
Project Advisor 1
Bruce A. Robertson
Abstract/Artist's Statement
Birds are renowned in the natural world for their remarkable visual abilities and navigation skills. However, birds’ polarized light vision remains largely uncharted territory and the only knowledge we have is that the ability of perceiving sky-oriented polarized light is related to magnetoreception during the migratory navigation process. My study was aiming to test whether birds are able to see terrestrial sources of linearly polarized light of visible range and if they are using such ability to guide their behaviors. I designed a choice field experiment which used two identical bird feeders that are only different in the degree of linear polarization (High and low) when sunlight hits on them. The result showed that both Black-capped chickadees and Tufted Titmouse had a slight preference on the treatment which had higher degree of linear polarization, suggesting that those two species seem to be able to see terrestrial sources of linearly polarized light and might be using the ability to perceive polarized light to obtain information and guide their behaviors apart from navigation.
Open Access Agreement
On-Campus only
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Recommended Citation
Liu, Chu, "Polarized Light Vision in Birds Under Terrestrial Context" (2024). Senior Projects Spring 2024. 173.
https://digitalcommons.bard.edu/senproj_s2024/173
This work is protected by a Creative Commons license. Any use not permitted under that license is prohibited.
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