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Nick Sly, a friend of 10,000 Birds who writes intermittently at the thoroughly-recommended Biological Ramblings , is an ornithologist who graduated not so long ago from Cornell only to be cast out into the real world where he keeps a wry eye on all things biological! The youngest bird in this clutch is only two or three days old.
As sound photography has not been invented yet, I will therefore focus on the other birds encountered here. Alphonse Milne-Edwards (1835-1900), a director to the National Museum of Natural History in Paris, whose study of bird fossils led to the discovery of tropical birds such as trogons and parrots from prehistoric France.
While these birds are very much liked by Chinese birders, the species could unfortunately not be named the National Bird of China as the Latin species name of the bird is Grus Japonicus. it would not be the national bird of the USA either. Incompetent photographers can always blame the bird.
The California Quail ( Callipepla californica ) is the California state bird, inhabiting scrub, broken chaparral and woodland edges primarily in California, Oregon, Washington and Baja California. In California, coveys break up and pairs begin forming in February or March, followed by nest building and egg laying in May or June.
One good thing about birding during a pandemic–the forced restrictions on place and time translate into more time to observe what birds do. Bird behavior–endlessly fascinating, but so much still hidden and unknown. Extreme behaviors also push scientists to look at birds in new ways.
I came late to bird feeding, and when I was finally able to put out a “thistle” sock and a seed feeder (or two or six), I was amazed by the learning curve. There is a long list of articles and books on how to feed birds in your yard. Feeding Wild Birds in America: Culture, Commerce & Conservation by Paul J. And conservation.
According to Wikipedia, birds (class Aves) are feathered, winged, two-legged, warm-blooded, egg-laying vertebrates. The fossil record indicates that birds emerged within the theropod dinosaurs during the Jurassic period, around 150 million years ago. Conservation Cavity nesting birds nestlings NestWatch'
There was a time when I thought each bird species had its own individual song. Then I found out that there was this vocalization called a ‘call,’ so I thought each bird species had its own individual song (but just the males) and individual call. Bird communication is a complex and evolving science.
Do birds use odors and a sense of smell to communicate with each other? The Secret Perfume of Birds: Uncovering the Science of Avian Scent focuses on this last question, but you might find yourself fascinated by the first two, which come early in the book but linger on in the imagination as author Danielle J. ” (p.
Producing a book about birds and nesting is a dangerous business. The truth is that there are few images cuter than baby birds in the nest opening their mouths and begging for food, but there are curmudgeons amongst us, myself included, who don’t like to admit this. And of birds courting and mating. We simply refuse to squee.
The proprietor of our ecolodge guides my small group of birders up a steep slope where we see, just at the point where a scope view deteriorates into pixels, a huge bird—a Chaco Eagle, also known as a Crowned Eagle—on a huge nest. We are cautioned to keep the location of the eagle a secret. wrote a lengthy article in Outside magazine (Jan.
They may be about birdeggs ( The Most Perfect Thing: The Inside (and Outside) of a Bird’s Egg , 2016), or a 17th-century ornithologist ( Virtuoso by Nature: The Scientific Worlds of Francis Willughby, 2016), or How Bullfinches learn songs from humans ( The Wisdom of Birds: An Illustrated History of Ornithology.
This is the second part of a post showing some birds seen at Nonggang in December 2022, along with the usual (mostly irrelevant) comments. The poor bird’s Latin species name is macgrigoriae , apparently (HBW) named after Jane Grant McGrigor, the daughter of Maj. Sir James McGrigor (1771-1858) Director Gen.
Given that according to the HBW, the species prefers dense primary and secondary montane forests, the note that the bird also forages among kitchen waste (in the same HBW entry) seems somewhat incongruous. Some like Charles Vaurie have considered it so unreliable that they even suggested the destruction of his egg collection.”
If you need to capture a bird for study or rehabbing, there are a number of tools at your disposal. That’s just what researchers on Cape Cod in Massachusetts are using–a cannon-fired net. Let’s hope the netted birds provide more information that points researchers to solutions. Their goal?
Looking for a bird book that has appeal to cross the generations, one that will delight both the preschooler and the seasoned birder? Try New York Times Bestselling author and illustrator Rachel Ignotofsky’s What’s Inside a Bird’s Nest? And What’s Inside a Bird’s Nest? What’s Inside a Bird’s Nest?
Of course, I jest a bit in the above paragraph because as a sometime New Jersey birder I have birded the Delaware Bay and seen sights such as the memorable image below, in which thousands of Red Knots, Dunlins, and Short-billed Dowitchers fly up as if connected telepathically. million in the late 1990’s.
Tim Birkhead, a respected ornithologist with years of research under his belt, doesn’t quite achieve perfection with this book on the totality of that strange entity, the bird’s egg, but he makes a valiant effort of it and comes away with a very interesting book indeed.
Peripatetic ornithologist Nick Sly has long been a friend of the blog here and has contributed such classics as Green-rumped Parrotlets from Egg to Adult and Forpus passerinus and the Ornithologists of Masaguaral. Please read and then vote for either Nick or Maria’s research! To win, we need your votes! Thanks for your support!
It’s a bang-up breeding year for super-endangered birds! As a backup plan, researchers captured some Spoonies in Siberia in 2011 and brought them to England , where they’ve been raised at the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust (WWT) in Slimbridge, Gloucestershire. Now, it’s Spoon-billed Sandpipers’ turn.
In her free time she travels near and far to find birds to continue building her life list, though many of her favorites can still be found right in her own backyard. She has contributed many pieces to 10,000 Birds and writes about her birding adventures on her blog, newbirder.tumblr.com. Lots and lots of birds.
Everyone loves baby birds; 10,000 Birds even had a Baby Bird Week once upon a time! Baby birds are cuteness personified, possibly even more so than other baby animals, including human babies, and pose interesting questions of survival and development. Aren’t they usually in their nest with their parents?”
With populations plunging dramatically over the last decade, researchers from the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust, Birds Russia, and a number of other conservation organizations made the always-controversial call to pluck eggs from the imperiled wild population and establish a captive breeding program as a final hedge against extinction.
Life is hard for baby birds, as the world is filled with reasons why they might not make it too adulthood. Starvation and predators make it hard to grow up, and birds have evolved a lot of strategies to give (at least some of) their chicks the best chance in life. Seabirds are one group of birds that go for the latter strategy.
A breeding bird atlas is a special kind of book. For birders, it’s the extremely large book, shelved in a place where it can’t crush the field guides, used to research the history of a bird in their area. It included surveys of nocturnal and marsh birds, and a point count survey of songbirds.
Photo of Common Cuckoo by Flickr user jamalhaider There is some interesting new research you will want to know about concerning Reed Warblers and Cuckoos. It is thought that the gray morph mimics a bird eating hawk. And, thus, they can learn that the Cuckoo is not really a bird-eating raptor.
… especially if you’re a lady bird in heat. Because unlike those of mammals, avian ova need penetration by multiple sperm in order to successfully develop into baby birds. That’s the finding of researchers from the University of Sheffield in the UK, published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B. (If
Isla Rasa was declared a sanctuary in 1964, and egg-collecting and disturbance during the breeding season are discouraged. These factors have caused the IUCN to rate this bird as “Near Threatened” 2. You know what one of my favorite things is about bird blogging? www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUBX_tlHySc. v=FUBX_tlHySc.
Like so many trips this one is more about the journey than the destination which brings us to why they have a guest post (hopefully the first of several) on 10,000 Birds. We hope that our journey will provide important information about many Neotropical bird species as well as inform conservation.” We were ecstatic!
The birds that wear tuxedos and star in major motion pictures. People call them “flightless birds&# but they do in fact fly; They just do it underwater. The evolution of the living penguins is one of the best known cases among birds, or even vertebrates in general, mainly through the study of DNA, bio-geography, and anatomy.
Among birds the Egyptian Vulture uses rocks to crack Ostrich eggs, the New Caledonian Crow and Woodpecker Finch (one of several Darwin Finches of the Galapagos Islands), uses sticks to extract grubs from inside a branch. This is similar to the fact that all birds, even first time breeders within a species build identical nests.
The Oriental Scops Owl is possibly my favorite of all bird species (though I may have said that about other species as well) – so, here’s a post with just some photos of this owl taken this autumn migration season. ” According to this book, scops (?) Camouflage at its best. Of course, the ear tufts are not really ears.
Not professionally – these people come in SUVs and probably never recapture their gas money from the fish they catch (though come to think of it, neither do I with my bird photos). This is ok as birds do not have teeth anyway). One strange thing about Chongming is the inevitable presence of people fishing. That means that.
Every time I travel into a new area, I try to do my due diligence and have a pretty good idea of what bird species I might expect to find. A few weeks ago, when we traveled to Guadalajara, Mexico, I researched the many different species, especially the hummingbirds. In mid June, the sun was out, and it was a beautiful day.
That’s what a group of researchers suggest in a paper recently published in Behavioral Ecology. The scientists, who studied bird populations in Europe and China , speculate that urban areas may have some appeal for passerines that rural areas otherwise lack. Smaller birds are much more likely to tolerate a human presence.
There are few bird names that will elicit great big smiles and Penguin is one of them. Other contenders are Kookaburra, Shoebill, and Umbrellabird, but people smile when they hear these names because they know a song or because they can’t believe these are real names of real birds. <pause> Do I have your attention now?
Instead, we’ve got other bird news to cheer us up (or at least take our minds off avian’s inexplicable inability to capture U.S. Project FeederWatch data prove that woodpeckers are at the top of the backyard bird feeder pecking order. sports championships ). And as a ferocious storm bears down on much of the northern U.S.,
The Latin species name cruentus , “blood-stained” has the same background Blood Pheasants mainly feed on mosses – not many bird species do this as mosses are not very nutritious. One paper identified the number of flocks in their research area “by tracing their tracks in the snow” Very Cowboys and Indians.
These were the sounds I heard as I walked around a small pond in Amherst, Massachusetts last week, looking for dragonflies, listening for birds. There are over 5,000 species of frogs in existence (5,858 at the time the book was written, the exact number changes as research dictates re-arrangements of taxonomy and new species are discovered).
Birds are able to fly away, but their nests and eggs can be destroyed. I was able to visualize six of the bird houses that survived. An excellent Audubon article states “What do birds do when wildfires break out? A fire might kill weak birds or, depending on the time of year, claim nestlings.
Yes, cute little Skylarks were all well and good, but what Kiwis really wanted were birds they could shoot and fish they could, uh, fish. New Zealand had, once upon a time, some fairly spectacular game birds, including massive flightless geese, massive flightles rails, and really enormous moa. Female Mallard, photo by Corey.
For example, in the Delaware Bay, warming coastal waters can cause horseshoe crabs to lay their eggs earlier than normal; conversely, more intense and frequent coastal storms can cause late spawning. In both cases, knots, which feed on the crabs’ eggs, can miss their peak refueling opportunity. Birds in Delaware Bay.
1, 2012, egg-laying hens across many European countries will live with fewer discomforts: The European Commission has officially implemented its ban on battery cages, the notoriously cramped cages used by many egg farmers and criticized by animal rights proponents and veterinarians who call them cruel and harmful to the birds' welfare.
The descriptions of the territory’s birds, seals, whales, introduced mammals, invertebrates, and plants are written within the framework of the conversationist, so it is more than a field guide, it is a record of endangered wildlife and the efforts being made to protect it.
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