Kamya Patel: The impacts of sleep disturbance on birds

<p dir="ltr">Sleep behaviour has been found in every animal researched so far. Research from other animals, such as mammals, has shown that poor sleep can affect communication, daily activity and stress-linked hormones such as corticosterone. But what about birds? Many of our birds reside in urban areas where they are vulnerable to sleep disturbances. In the wild, sleeping birds likely get disturbed from artificial light at night, urban noise, people and predators. In our we study, we sleep disturb birds every night for 30 nights and measure differences in their singing, stress hormones and activity. We aim to find out how birds may be affected by sleeping in urban areas.</p>