The recording of this program from 6 Feb 2024 is now available online

Great Gray Owl (photo courtesy of Christopher Clark)

Recording Glitch: There are two programs recorded here. The first (18 seconds long) is useless; click the forward button >| at lower left of screen to go past it. When the second recording appear, click the usual run button at lower left. Dr. Clark begins speaking about 20 seconds in.

Singing Feathers, Humming of Hummingbirds and the Quiet Flight of Owls and other Birds with Dr. Christopher J. Clark

Dr. Christopher J. Clark, Professor of Biology at UCR uses wind tunnels, high-speed video and other technology to study bioacoustics and biomechanics of flight and courtship.  In what was originally a side project of his Ph.D., he figured out that Anna’s Hummingbirds produce loud sounds with their tail-feathers. This result was so interesting that sounds produced in flight became a major part of his research program. He will spend the first part of his presentation discussing how hummingbirds make both vocal and nonvocal sounds.  Then he will pivot to discussing a more recent interest: quiet flight. Owls such as Great Gray Owl perform an especially amazing feat: they take prey such as voles that they locate by ear alone. Dr. Clark will discuss ongoing research on quiet flight, as well as unanswered questions such as: why do nightbirds (such as Common Poorwill) also have quiet flight?

Dr. Clark grew up in Seattle, received his undergraduate degree in Zoology from Washington State University in 2001, his Ph.D. from the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology at UC Berkeley in 2009, then worked in the Peabody Museum at Yale University until 2013, and has been a professor in the Evolution, Ecology, and Organismal Biology department at UC Riverside from 2013-present.

Great Gray Owl locating prey under the snow. (photo courtesy of Christopher Clark)