Desert crossing strategies of migrant songbirds vary between and within species.

Each year, billions of songbirds cross large ecological barriers during their migration. Understanding how they perform this incredible task is crucial to predict how global change may threaten the safety of such journeys. Earlier studies based on radar suggested that most songbirds cross deserts in intermittent flights at high altitude, stopping in the desert during the day, while recent tracking with light loggers suggested diurnal prolongation of nocturnal flights and common non-stop flights for some species.

Synthesis of a Mn6 cluster and its self-assembly of an azido-bridged polymer.

A rare micro6-oxo-centered Mn6 mixed-valent cluster (1) is prepared and used as a secondary building unit for the self-assembly of its azido-bridged polymeric analogue (2) in a systematic way with the retention of the Mn6 core of 1. Both complexes are characterized by X-ray single-crystal structure determination. The complex 1 was crystallized in a monoclinic system, space group P21, a=11.