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In developing the Bird Commission, its commissioner, Henry I. Bird, and other officials eventually chose to compensate Japanese Canadians for the forced sale of their property below free market value using property categories and set percentages. They developed strict formulas for each category that should have been easy to follow when reimbursing claimants. However, this was not the case. Commission officials failed to follow the procedures that they had developed when awarding compensation to Japanese Canadians. Claimants could collect awards that were below or above the amounts that the commission’s procedure predicted. This thesis aims to understand the reasons why Bird Commission officials failed to follow the formulas that they had developed when compensating Japanese Canadians for the dispossession of their property through an examination of the Bird Commission Casefiles and Custodian Casefiles. Using information gathered from these government records, this analysis employs statistical analysis to explain the factors which influenced commission officials to alter awards. Considering the historical context of the commission, this analysis also offers explanations for why the factors uncovered using regression analysis may have impacted the commission and its outcomes. Recognizing the deviations in the Bird Commission’s compensation offers new insights into the commission’s operations and impacts on Japanese Canadians. It highlights a close relationship between the commission and officials from the Office of the Custodian of Enemy Property, and it participates with the work of other scholars in acknowledging the efforts that Japanese Canadians made in making the Canadian government confront the injustices it had conducted against them. / Graduate

I investigated the maternal effects that take place in a joint-nesting bird: the smooth-billed ani. Female anis were shown to respond to increasing group size by increasing the number of eggs produced per capita, by tossing and burying more eggs per capita, and by taking longer to reach the dedicated incubation phase. These results support the hypothesis that females respond to increased egg laying competition by trying to skew the contents of the final incubated clutch of eggs in their own favor. I showed that in ani groups, yolk testosterone and estradiol deposited by females in eggs increased from early- to late-laid eggs. Increases in yolk steroid levels over the laying sequence may function to mitigate the disadvantage of being a later-hatched chick. This maternal influence may not be a mere reflection of a female's hormonal status as female plasma circulating levels of testosterone and estradiol did not vary in the same direction as yolk hormone profiles. I showed that yolk corticosterone levels, an indicator of maternal physiological stress, increased with laying order in multi-female groups, but not in single-female groups. Results suggest that laying females experience higher levels of stress in multifemale groups. The above results suggest that communal life in anis generates competition and egg production waste that likely reduces short-term per capita reproductive benefits. Female anis can vary egg quality via deposition of hormones in eggs, and also lay eggs of different sizes. I showed that circulating plasma testosterone levels were higher in nestlings with better begging abilities. Furthermore, nestlings hatched from eggs laid late in the laying sequence had better begging abilities. These results suggest that testosterone is an important controlling mechanism of begging behaviour, and that female testosterone depositions in eggs rave long lasting effects on offspring development and behavior. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Analysis of strike data is critical to determine the true economic costs of bird strikes, determine the magnitude of safety issues, and develop preventive measures. Analysis of USAF bird-strike data identified trends and indicated suggested relationships among factors contributing to damaging strikes. From FY 1988 through FY 1997, the annual mean was 2,668 bird strikes with peaks evident in fall and spring. Daylight and dusk were hazardous for bird strikes. More bird strikes occurred during airfield operations - aircraft are at low altitudes and soaring birds are more numerous. Aircraft speed, phase of flight, taxonomic group, bird mass and aircraft group were the strongest predictors of damaging bird strikes. Bird strike rates were calculated for USAF aircraft and selected USAF airfields. Bomber aircraft had the highest strike rate; these aircraft frequently fly long missions at low altitudes where they are likely to encounter birds. Logistic regression analyses estimated odds of occurrence for damaging bird strikes during airfield operations. General statistics, odds for a damaging airfield strike, and airfield strike rates, were used to identify USAF airfields with higher bird strike risks. Howard AFB, Panama, had a higher number and rate of bird strikes, and greater odds for a damaging bird strike than other airfields analyzed. This study allows recommendations for improving reporting of bird strikes and data management. Results will enable USAF to better estimate bird strike risks aircraft, better focus research on preventing bird strikes, and assess the effectiveness of bird management programs. / Master of Science

This thesis aims to classify the Aerodynamics of a pigeon’s tail. In this thesis two differenttheoretical solutions are implemented to solve the aerodynamics. The first is by analysingequations created by Polhamus [1], and the second theoretical analysis is done by digitalizingmoment coefficient curves by Winter [2]. The equation for the moment coefficient cm is shownin equation 1, here M is the moment q the dynamic pressure, S the wings polanform area,and c the chord leangth. A practical experiment is conducted on the pigeon’s tail where theaerodynamic forces are measured in a wind tunnel. The experimental setup included motiontracking to analyze the Angle of Attack of the tail in the wind tunnel, a force sensor, anda servo to set the angle of attack. The resulting curves show that there should exist a peakaerodynamic performance at around 30◦ spread angle and 30◦ angle of attack. The peak is found in both the theoretical and the experimental analysis. / Denna avhandling syftar till att klassificera aerodynamiken hos en duvas svans. I denna uppsatsimplementeras två olika teoretiska lösningar för att approximera aerodynamiken. Den första är genom att analysera ekvationer skapade av Polhamus [1], och den andra teoretiska analysen görs genom att digitalisera momentkoefficientkurvor av Winter [2]. Ekvationen för momentkoefficienten cm visas i ekvationen 1, här är M momentet q det dynamiska trycket, S vingarnas planformarea och c Vingprofillangden. Ett praktiskt experiment genomförs på duvans svans där de aerodynamiska krafterna mäts i en vindtunnel. Den experimentella uppställningen inkluderade rörelsespårning för att analysera anfallsvinkeln för svansen i vindtunneln, en kraftsensor och en servo för att ställa in attackvinkeln. De resulterande kurvorna visar att det borde finnas en topp aerodynamisk prestanda vid runt 30◦ spridningsvinkel och 30◦ anfallsvinkel. Toppen finns i både den teoretiska och den experimentella analysen.

Recent global climate change is influencing the behaviour and ecology of species worldwide. Birds are typical systems to study in this context, as they are often migratory and thus subjected to a variety of environmental effects. This thesis employs the use of long-term ringing records, field observations, historical maps and historical volunteer observations with the aim of describing behavioural and ecological responses of birds to the current environmental change. An investigation into the spring arrival, reproduction and autumn departure in willow warblers (Phylloscopus trochilus) breeding at a southern study site in Sweden (65°N 18°E) showed that all three phenological events had advanced in parallel. Thus birds arrive earlier, start breeding earlier and leave Sweden earlier, with the breeding period staying the same in length. By teasing apart the migratory responses of different individuals, it became clear that particularly early arriving males and early departing juveniles had advanced migration. However, willow warblers migrating past a northern study site in Sweden (65°N 23°E) displayed no change in autumn departure. When migration in the two regionally separate populations were analyzed in relation to climatic variables, the results indicated that foremost a combined effect of growing season onset and the North Atlantic Oscillation influenced migratory timing, and only in individuals that had advanced migration. As growing season onset had advanced at both regions, but only elicited migratory change in southern willow warblers, it is proposed that intra-specific difference between populations prepare them differently to climate change. Willow warblers breeding at northern latitudes were also displaying absence of an otherwise common behaviour of the species: philopatry. It is suggested that the climate induced change in onset of the growing season, coupled with an increase in available territories, could have enabled a southern influx of dispersal-prone birds adopting a less philopatric breeding behaviour. Availability of territories was also studied in southern Sweden, in relation to 100 years of land use change and future climate change effects on forestry. The mass-conversion of grazed forest into coniferous sylvicultures that has occurred in Sweden 1900-2013 was shown to have negatively affected territory availability for willow warblers. The second most common bird species in Sweden, the chaffinch (Fringilla coelebs), was however shown to be largely unaffected. In a future scenario where rising temperatures will increase growth rates of trees, harvest rotation will be faster and both sylvicultures and logged areas will increase in coverage, favouring both species. Thus commonness in terms of landscape and species occurrence has altered historically and is dynamically linked. Historic perspectives were also applied to observations of spring arrival of 14 migratory bird species. A relative comparison of two data sets, collected over 140 years, revealed that short-distance migrants have changed their spring arrival more than long-distance migrants in southern Sweden. In conclusion, the results of this thesis provide insights into climate change effects on avian behaviour and ecology, document unique observations and contribute with a great spectrum of knowledge, from exact details on responses by individual birds, through long-term changes in populations to historical perspectives on shifts in entire landscapes / <p>At the time of the doctoral defense, the following papers were unpublished and had a status as follows: Paper 2: Manuscript. Paper 3: Manuscript. Paper 4: Manuscript.</p>

Birds are a key environmental asset and this is recognised through comprehensive legislation and policy ensuring their protection and conservation. Many species are active at night and surveys are required to understand the implications of proposed developments such as towers and reduce possible conflicts with these structures. Night vision devices are commonly used in nocturnal surveys, either to scope an area for bird numbers and activity, or in remotely sensing an area to determine potential risk. This thesis explores some practical and theoretical approaches that can improve the accuracy, confidence and efficiency of nocturnal bird surveillance. As image intensifiers and thermal imagers have operational differences, each device has associated strengths and limitations. Empirical work established that image intensifiers are best used for species identification of birds against the ground or vegetation. Thermal imagers perform best in detection tasks and monitoring bird airspace usage. The typically used approach of viewing bird survey video from remote sensing in its entirety is a slow, inaccurate and inefficient approach. Accuracy can be significantly improved by viewing the survey video at half the playback speed. Motion detection efficiency and accuracy can be greatly improved through the use of adaptive background subtraction and cumulative image differencing. An experienced ornithologist uses bird flight style and wing oscillations to identify bird species. Changes in wing oscillations can be represented in a single inter-frame similarity matrix through area-based differencing. Bird species classification can then be automated using singular value decomposition to reduce the matrices to one-dimensional vectors for training a feed-forward neural network.

Life history strategy suggests long lived bird species will adjust their nesting effort according to current conditions, balancing the costs of reproduction with their long-term needs for survival and future reproduction. The habitat conditions that produce these responses may differ between species, even within the same ecosystem, producing different nesting and population trends. I traced the pathway by which food availability influences the physiological condition of pre-breeding great egrets and white ibises through to reproductive measures, and the physiological condition of chicks. I focused on these two species with contrasting foraging strategies, in relation to foraging and habitat conditions to maximize the likelihood of application of these results to other wading bird species. Experimental food supplementation and physiology research on white ibis chicks demonstrated that in years with low prey availability white ibis were food limited, with increased levels of stress protein 60 and fecal corticosterone. This is the first study to demonstrate experimentally the response of stress protein 60 to changing levels of food availability. During a year with low prey availability (2007) white ibis adults and chick physiological condition was lower than that of great egrets. During the same year, fledging success was lower for both species (20% for white ibis versus 27% for great egret) but the magnitude of the decrease was particularly severe for the white ibis (76% decline versus 66% decline for the great egret). Results suggest white ibises modify their clutch size during years with poor habitat in accordance with life history traits of a long-lived species, whereas great egrets maintained their clutch size during years with poor habitat. / Increasing recession rates, hydrological reversals, and prey densities influenced white ibis, whereas great egrets were most influenced by prey densities and recession rates, with no effect of hydrological reversal. During the same year, fledging success was lower for both species (20% for white ibis versus 27% for great egret) but the magnitude of the decrease was particularly severe for the white ibis (76% decline versus 66% decline for the great egret). Results suggest white ibises modify their clutch size during years with poor habitat in accordance with life history traits of a long-lived species, whereas great egrets maintained their clutch size during years with poor habitat. Increasing recession rates, hydrological reversals, and prey densities influenced white ibis, whereas great egrets were most influenced by prey densities and recession rates, with no effect of hydrological reversals. This study is the first to make the link between landscape hydrology patterns, prey availability, and responses in wading bird nesting. These linkages provide critical insight into how species' nesting patterns could differ given the same time and spatial constraints and how that may be related to long-term nesting trends. This knowledge could ultimately lead to novel predictions about population and community patterns of wetland birds. / by Garth Herring. / Individual abstract for each chapter. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references at the end of each chapter. / Electronic reproduction. Boca Raton, FL : 2008 Mode of access: World Wide Web.

Food availability is the primary factor affecting the reproductive success in many species of birds. Diet composition can indicate diet quality, habitat use and niche requirements for breeding birds and may be variable across short and long-term time scales. Identifying primary prey types of nesting wading birds is important for the hydrologic restoration of wetlands. I collected nestling boluses during the 2008 and 2009 nesting seasons from three species of wading birds that nest in the northern Everglades: White Ibis, Tricolored Herons and Snowy Egrets. White Ibis bolus composition was dominated by crayfish in both years, but exhibited some variation with landscape water depth in 2009; fish use was greatest when the wetland landscape was relatively dry. In contrast, the prey of Tricolored Herons and Snowy Egrets were primarily fish and their respective diets did not differ from one another in either fish species composition or size structure. / by Robin A. Boyle. / Thesis (M.S.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2010. / Includes bibliography. / Electronic reproduction. Boca Raton, Fla., 2010. Mode of access: World Wide Web.