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The potpourri covers some interesting bird related science of the last few weeks, and the promise is this: I’ll get to that other stuff soon, I promise! From Science Daily : Crows have the brain power to solve higher-order, relational-matching tasks, and they can do so spontaneously, according to new research.
It also has one of the highest human population densities in the state. Not surprisingly, this brings Burrowing Owls into close contact with humans across the county. Loss of habitat due to development, disturbance at burrows and negative interactions with humans are some of the threats facing this charismatic species.
Beginning this year, New York State embarked on its third-ever breeding bird atlas , and it’s the first one I’ve been able to participate in as a birder. Over the last several weeks there, I’ve watched them gather bits of straw and other sundry materials and ferry these back to their nest holes in the old barn walls and eaves.
Humans are not always bad for birds, only about 95% of the time. They breed in the tunnel area, giving those birdwatchers anxiously waiting for the Chinese Monal to show up something to do in the meantime – like watching the shift change. Sounds a bit like some weird Nazi eugenics experiment to me, but I guess it is just science.
And much of that time is spend loafing around the breeding colonies trying to pair off and engaging in silly-looking behaviours referred to as dancing by scientists. It can take over a year to raise a chick for the larger species, and even species that can fit their entire breeding cycle into one year tend not to breed in consecutive years.
What if, in turn, the discovery that the species was not truly extinct held the key to saving humanity from another, even more devestating flu outbreak? This is a book that people come to for the plot and the science. All actual captive breeding efforts failed for a reason, after all. But what of that?
It’s all about the improbable intersection of human beings and Emperor Penguins, and if I can’t make it to an Emperor Penguin colony (highly unlikely), reading this book has been the next best thing. It’s part memoir, part travelogue, part scientific narrative, part prologue to making an argument for Antarctic conservation.
More than 150 bird species are known to have become extinct over the past 500 years, and many more are estimated to have been driven to extinction before they became known to science. Rueppell’s (facing left) and White-backed (three birds facing right) Vultures have worryingly leapt two categories from Near-Threatened to Endangered.
One website states that only 15% of the birds that hatch make it to become first year breeding adults, 6% make it to the second year, and 3% to the third year. Other species – such as starlings or t**s – stealing the nesting site of Eurasian Nuthatches is one of the major reasons for breeding failure.
Quite likely, these birds are also the inspiration for Australian science communicator Dr. Karl Kruszelnicki. According to the HBW entry for this species, it “has been claimed that loss of native mammals after European settlement created shortage of nesting material, explaining this species’ penchant for taking hair from humans.”
Granted, it’s not always on a scale we can readily appreciate, and we humans are much more attuned to the differences in each other because that’s how we recognize friends, family, and celebrities on the street, but when a bird is even slightly different from the norm, it’s generally the more expected species than the unexpected.
Penguins are flightless, but some species locomote over long distances on antarctic ice to travel between breeding grounds and the sea. Fossil Evidence for Evolution of the Shape and Color of Penguin Feathers Science, 330 (6006), 954-957 DOI: 10.1126/science.1193604 Salas-Gismondi, R., Altamirano, A., Shawkey, M., Vinther, J.,
The species is a cooperative breeder – chicks from previous breeding attempts help bringing up the next batch of chicks, like baby-sitting teenagers, though the latter are not related to the kids they babysit and also mainly do it for money, so I guess these two things are not really comparable at all. ” Hurray for science.
Interestingly, the molt of the males takes about 20 days longer than that of the females – the authors speculate that this is because of the different peak time efforts in breeding, with the males being involved earlier (singing, establishing territory) than the females (incubating, nestling care).
It’s a matter of personal preference: neither does every reader like, say, science fiction, or the writing of Henry James, or romance novels. In A Dance of Cranes, dancing, both avian and human, is a leitmotif. (For There’s no accounting for taste.
If you have always wondered what the minimum anesthetic concentration for isoflurane and sevoflurane for the Crested Serpent-eagle is, science has an answer. The breeding ecology of the Yellow-bellied Warbler was actually studied exactly here at Nonggang in 2019 by 3 Chinese researchers. Glad I did not have to watch these.
Humans, you ought to be ashamed of yourselves. I have to say that the pattern suits the buntings much better than humans, though, and hopefully, it is also more pleasant for them to wear. This species is listed as vulnerable – similar to the Yellow-breasted Buntings, it is trapped on a large scale.
The task of wrestling this topic down into something that the human mind can manage, without losing sight of the big picture because it’s snowing in Buffalo, is likely to be the task of a lifetime for many science communicators. Few issues of our day are as huge, in scope or in implication, as climate change.
Shorebird identification takes time and is often stressful, there’s heat glare and bugs and drones and dogs and humans. It’s a book that counterpoints and combines facts and personal experiences, science-based and eloquent writing styles, textual description and visual information, a history of abundance and an uncertain future.
Erika is a first year graduate student studying Ecosystem Science and Conservation at Duke. The park is home to not one, not two, but large three colonies of breeding seabirds: the Brown Noddy , Magnificent Frigatebird , and Sooty Tern. Lots and lots of birds. It was for the birds that we made this journey in the first place.
Not all habitat change is due to humans; there is Chestnut Blight destroying American Chestnuts in the early 1900s, and the more recent Dutch Elm disease. The authors’ detailed delineation of problems with the accuracy of NYC breeding bird surveys or with the limits of historical writings may test a reader’s patience.
In the non-breeding season, male Baya Weavers sometimes enter the basket-making trade, often with considerable success. Meanwhile, the females seem to have a much more relaxing life, at least in this early stage of the breeding season. You can see why here.
A press release about the study likened the contrast to “the differences between humans with and without freckles.”) Genetic differences in throat color illustration by Liz Clayton Fuller/Bartels Science). Breeding range map by David Toews/Cornell Lab).
According to the HBW, when breeding, male birds do most of the incubation and parenting while females often leave the nest up to one week before the eggs hatch. ” I can see how this line of thinking leads to all kinds of sci-fi types of thought (“would I mate with an alien if I was the last human on earth”, etc.),
In what might nowadays be regarded as a slightly weird scientific practice, after meeting naturalist Daniel Gottlieb Messerschmidt, he married Messerschmidt’s widow after his death and got notes from Messerschmidt’s Siberia travels from her that had not been handed over to the Imperial Academy of Sciences.
Way back when I started what turned out to be my thesis research (on humans), it became important for me to learn about bird migration. I was involved in the study of human movement and navigation on land, and there was a lot of research coming out about bird navigation. Itcher birds, migratory members of the tern family. Image source.
49-50) She is also adept at writing about conservation’s larger context in terms of its history, public policy struggles, and the science behind species re-introduction. Well-researched and footnoted, these sections never feel disconnected from the more personal sections.
Fortunately, there are a few more such breeding species than most Shanghainese are aware of. While the HBW states that it breeds at 300 – 2450 meters, in Shanghai – where such elevations are not available outside of the upper floors of a few highrises – it makes to with an altitude of about 0 meters as well.
These two islands are about halfway between the tip of South Africa and Antarctica in the Subantarctic Indian Ocean, have had relatively few human visitors, and are primarily inhabited with some of the rarest seabirds in the world and a smaller number of mammals. Which makes it a haven for seabirds….and and seabirders.
Here are a few other things regular readers of this site may be familiar with: The bird science journal “The Condor,” the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology at UC Berkeley, the concept of “niche,” and the system for making field observations of species known as the “Grinnell System.”
We immediately get a sense of the pigeons’ abundance, beauty, and danger to human activity. She portrays humans merged with Passenger Pigeons; the images are then framed to look like 19th century calling cards. This bit of science is a nice final counterpoint to an account that has emphasized art, history, and literature.
They used Great T**s from non-urban and urban areas, and mixed them up through breeding, to rule out any possible family history of telomere length. The benefits are many, including the availability of anthropogenic food sources, breeding boxes and warmer temperatures. The less telomere, the more aging, independently of time.
I am sure some people will hate this photo of a Eurasian Hoopoe , framed as it is by human artifacts. As I am sure I have mentioned before, a lot of science work seems to aim to prove the obvious – though the researchers still phrase their results very carefully. Of course, me being me, this is a good reason to show it.
Data were collected from the North American Breeding Bird Survey and the Pan-European Common Birds Monitoring Scheme. In essence, the benefits to birds from climate change (global warming caused by human release of greenhouse gas pollution) is neutral, while the negative effects are serious and increasing. Stephens, Philip, et al.
According to Tim Low (in “Where Song began”), “so easy were they to breed that by 1859 they cost less to buy in London than in Sydney.” ” Funny how the difficulty of breeding a species can be illustrated in simple monetary terms. Is it offensive to say that Australian Zebra Finches breed like rabbits?
It is listed as Near Threatened – the HBW cites the usual reasons that are just other ways of saying that humans do not care enough for other species, such as forest loss and degradation in its winter range. Fear not, science has an answer: about 1.16 not their own).
Written in a friendly, inclusive style quietly grounded in science, How to Know the Birds is an excellent addition to the growing list of birding essay books by talented birder/writers like Pete Dunne and Kenn Kaufman. ” The essays are arranged in thematic order grouped in six sections: “Spark Bird!” He received a B.A.
In fact, it’s one of the most painful of all human experiences. The art and science of getting past no begins with self-control – and that begins with awareness. It clouds objectivity and breeds insecurity. Need for significance is a core human desire and weakness. Author: Jeb Blount Rejection hurts. Desperation.
Supporting local conservation organizations and participating in citizen science initiatives allows us to contribute to the protection of Shanghai’s bird species and their habitats. Conclusion: Shanghai, with its juxtaposition of urban landscapes and thriving birdlife, is a testament to the harmonious coexistence of humanity and nature.
This is a delightful book, large (8-1/2 by 11 inches), filled with Sibley’s distinctive artwork and an organized potpourri of research-based stories about the science behind bird’s lives. copyright @2020 by David A llen Sibley. As Sibley tells us in the Preface, he originally intended to write a children’s book.
What I didn’t know was how this relationship actually works: the mechanics of Red Knot migration, the reduced digestive systems necessary for their long flighta, the need to fatten up quickly so they can fly to the Arctic and breed, how they compete with other shorebirds and gulls and, it turns out, humans, for horseshoe crab eggs.
Connection breeds trust. Be a human first. It doesn’t need a long, meandering discussion about world politics, science, or global markets. Most teams are rapidly adapting to remote work environments and the adoption of technologies to facilitate more collaboration and face time. The need for connection is great and simple.
For those who didn't read the five-part Slate series " Pepper, the stolen dog who changed American science " by Daniel Engber , I recommend it for the history, but also for the misconceptions and assumptions that you might want to discuss on the Facebook discussion about the series. It "guarantees humane treatment?" Maybe on paper.
Then, in one of my freshmen science classes, there was a discussion about extinct species, which then lead to the topic of threatened, or endangered species, and what we could do to help out. Much like every beautiful sandy beach, the human encroachment is substantial.
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