Quick trip to the University of Montana Flight Lab to work with Bret Tobalske and his student Cullen Flynn on a study of heat-budget management during flight in pigeons. This is our first foray in this work beyond hummingbirds. Key in this work is the use of an autonomic inhibitor to prevent the pigeons from adjusting feather position to either increase or decrease skin exposure for the purpose of controlling passive and possibly evaporative heat dissipation following a series of flights. The protocols we used in this quick experiment worked remarkably well! Stay tuned for the results.
