10,000 Birds

JANUARY 28, 2017

The World’s biggest citizen science wildlife count takes place this weekend. It is marketed as a family activity and limited to one hour to allow for young attention spans. Greenfinch populations have plummeted as Goldfinch numbers have soared for example. How easy is that?

Birds 100

Birds Wildlife Science Protection 100

10,000 Birds

JULY 7, 2020

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. They portray the nesting cycles of Mallard, Red-tailed Hawk, and American Robin, illustrating the various ways in which birds create families.

2020 264

2020 Birds North America Sparrows 264

10,000 Birds

MARCH 2, 2023

The Latin species name of the Common Greenshank , nebularia , sounds a bit like a science fiction novel to me – however, it means “misty” and apparently is derived from the birds’ misty, marshy habitat (HBW). Like this bird family b. Fortunately, they are quite common in Shanghai. Like bad jokes and c.

Iraq 130

Iraq Birds China Ireland 130

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 13, 2012

Nonetheless, I thought it might be interesting and informative to review a DVD put out by Crowe’s Nest Media , a family owned and operated company, which is how I found a copy of Your Backyard: A young beginner’s guide to identifying 18 common feeder birds by sight & sound in my mailbox earlier this week. .”

Science 176

Science Owls Pennsylvania United States 176

10,000 Birds

JUNE 4, 2018

In a little less than two weeks my family and I will be enjoying a long weekend on the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico. But rather than just use field guides for visual field marks and xeno-canto for sounds I have discovered a fun way to help me prepare that also contributes to citizen science in a small but noticeable way.

Belize 106

Belize Mexico Honduras Science 106

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 7, 2020

In addition, many of the numbers and examples given for NYC areas beyond the Bronx represent species observed in Central Park in Manhattan and Prospect Park in Brooklyn. This is a project that clearly spanned decades. The authors say they want to “place Van Cortlandt Park’s avifauna in a New York City park perspective” (p.34).

New York City 151

New York City New York Birds Breeding 151

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 6, 2022

Birkhead, the experienced storyteller who is also Emeritus Professor at the School of Biosciences, The University of Sheffield, author of multiple scientific articles as well as books of popular science, knows how to make it readable and fun. Colonialism and appropriation of knowledge is discussed in Chapter 6, The New World of Science.

Dissection 223

Dissection Birds Europe Eggs 223

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 1, 2015

For example, on finding gulls: Close study of gulls is not for everyone, and birders shouldn’t feel obligated to get deep into it if you prefer colorful, less-confusing, families of birds. In every chapter, Nate makes clear that you can go further and deeper, but you don’t have to. And you will still be a birder.

North Carolina 263

North Carolina Birds North America Owls 263

10,000 Birds

MAY 4, 2021

Marybeth learns as she birds, embraces listing goals as a means of engaging with community, unabashedly enjoys a little competition, struggles to balance her absolute joy in birding with unexpected, life-and-death family obligations. The book focuses on two listing events: her 2012 Louisiana Big Year and her 2016 Louisiana 300 Year.

Louisiana 264

Louisiana Species Mississippi Alabama 264

10,000 Birds

MARCH 3, 2020

This is more than eBird reports–a checklist generated from the citizen science database lists only 1,413 species. The song of the Amazonian Antshrike, for example, is “an even pitched, fast (9-11 noes/sec), slightly accelerating series of hollow, popping notes that get louder; occ. slightly rising-falling in pitch and pace.

Bolivia 175

Bolivia Birds Brazil Switzerland 175

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 3, 2021

Bird communication is a complex and evolving science. Ballantine and Hyman explore how birds communicate and summarize studies on how that communication functions in diverse bird families all over the world. Bird communication is much broader than just vocalization, something I tend to forget.

North America 279

North America Research Birds America 279

10,000 Birds

MAY 7, 2019

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.

North America 115

North America Birds Prairie Dogs Barn Owls 115

10,000 Birds

MAY 19, 2015

If only you could make fine adjustments to the expression of existing DNA you could hatch a dinosaur, starting with, for example, a turkey. The second thing they did was to interfere with the genetic pathways in some chickens, which produced a chicken with beaky bits that were more like snouty bits found in, for example, a Alligator.

Alligators 216

Alligators Chickens Research Reptiles 216

Critter News

NOVEMBER 16, 2010

Change Of Heart provides science-based answers to many questions that are hotly debated among animal activists. For example, why is it so hard for our family members and co-workers – many of whom have companion animals that they love – to cut cruelty from their diets and go vegan? In the author's words.

Advocacy 100

Advocacy Factory Farm Factory Farming Farm Sanctuary 100

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 13, 2011

Their taxonomic affinities have caused great confusion and debate amongst ornithologists; they were originally assigned to the thrush family, then Old World warblers before being shifted to babblers (the last mentioned a common dumping-ground for any aberrant passerines).

South Africa 225

South Africa Lesotho Swaziland Africa 225

10,000 Birds

JULY 3, 2018

This is also where Johnson starts talking about the cost of the theft to the Museum and to science. The Flame Bowerbird, for example. He says he is motivated by what he has learned from the curators about the skins importance to science, but he is also clearly irritated by the fact that Rist has gotten off so lightly.

Collecting 103

Collecting Iraq Ostriches Science 103

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 15, 2011

Artists rendition of Inkayacu paracasensis There are 17 living species of penguins, which make up their own Linnean family (Spheniscidae), which is the only family in the order Sphenisciformes. Fossil Evidence for Evolution of the Shape and Color of Penguin Feathers Science, 330 (6006), 954-957 DOI: 10.1126/science.1193604

Penguins 193

Penguins Seals Peru Leopards 193

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 6, 2012

For example, I was going to add “no tail” to the list of features above, what all frogs share, when I remembered that there are indeed a small family of Tailed frogs, four species in New Zealand and two in North America (though, the tails are quite tiny). If you don’t live near a science museum, then read this chapter.

Reptiles 186

Reptiles Madagascar Family New York City 186

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 6, 2019

Clearly, author Phyllis Limbacher Tildes, the author of 24, soon to be 25, children’s books, is also a birder (and a little research brings up a presentation she gave at Ogeechee Audubon, Georgia with the biographical information and she and her family “love watching birds and wildlife seen near their lagoon on Skidaway Island.”

New York City 151

New York City Pelicans Penguins New York 151

Sales and Marketing Management

DECEMBER 3, 2018

Second, many of these performers were married and the idea of travel, even incentive travel, meant their families would be on their own for a few days. In the previous example, the company’s leaders assumed their high performers would be as engaged in the company’s operational effectiveness as were they.

Family 70

Family Research Groups Science 70

10,000 Birds

JUNE 21, 2016

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. In this study, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a group of juvenile zebra finches was allowed to interact with an adult. Here’s the problem.

Zebras 111

Zebras Mammals Primates Birds 111

10,000 Birds

JULY 18, 2012

A few families have a small number of eggs in the clutches, like gulls or cormorants. The species readily takes to nesting in small artificial boxes, and the scientists of PRBO Conservation Science have over 450 such boxes scattered across the island to monitor the species.

Eggs 165

Eggs Puffins Breeding Albatross 165

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 18, 2011

This has happened before, Archaeopteryx and the bird family tree have had an often tenuous relationship. But it is utterly bewildering to me to see news reports about this recent science that read “… An icon knocked from its perch&# or “Archaeopteryx no longer first bird.&# Flight is an example.

Mammals 250

Mammals Europe Groups Family 250

10,000 Birds

JUNE 21, 2024

Birds & Flowers: An Intimate 50 Million Year Relationship is to highlight other bird families that pollinate. This is not, it should be noted, the sort of book in which a journeyman nature writer distills the ins and outs of some discrete marvel of natural or physical science to a lay readership. Based in Denmark and the U.K,

Denmark 232

Denmark Pythons Europe Birds 232

10,000 Birds

APRIL 5, 2022

It also summarizes the vagrancy status of every bird family in the whole wide world, which makes it fun to read as well as superbly educational. Today’s vagrant could be tomorrow’s resident, a change that is visibly happening with, for example, the Clay-colored Thrush in southern Texas. It’s not always easy reading.

Compassion 261

Compassion Birds Eagles Science 261

10,000 Birds

MARCH 13, 2012

The famous Verreaux family who made several expeditions into the province through the 1820’s and 1830’s procuring specimens for rich collectors. Gurney’s Sugarbird was discovered by the Verreaux family and named after wealthy English banker and amateur naturalist John Gurney from Norwich. Image by Hugh Chittenden.

Mozambique 189

Mozambique South Africa Africa Collecting 189

10,000 Birds

JUNE 1, 2021

These run the range from birds like Barnacle Goose and Little Egret, which are rare but do show up in North America every few years (actually, lately it’s been every year) to birds whose sightings in North America are so few that they’re legendary–Western Reef-Heron and Corn Crake are two examples. This is not unusual.

North America 279

North America America California Condor Birds 279

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 5, 2021

For example, while we’re used to ‘seasonality,’ observing damselflies and dragonflies in warmer months, rainfall is “the most significant variable” in the tropics (p. Species are arranged by family and genus along taxonomic lines, but not always in accordance with the very latest molecular DNA research.

Costa Rica 261

Costa Rica North America Family America 261

10,000 Birds

MAY 19, 2011

Itcher birds, migratory members of the tern family. But in the vast in between where most birds exist there are all sorts of contradictory examples. Little tiny birds with their little tiny wings and high daily energetic demands fly zillions of miles, while larger birds migrate shorter distances, for example. Image source.

Compassion 194

Compassion Humane Research Egypt 194

10,000 Birds

JULY 25, 2022

For example , in one study, it was found that more than 80 percent of the fledgling Australian Magpies born in a territory one year were sired by males from outside its borders. When these birds breed, this can lead to highly cringeworthy announcements, for example from Adelaide Zoo : “We have egg-citing news!”

Australia 232

Australia Birds Mountain Goats Ducks 232

10,000 Birds

MARCH 18, 2011

The thousands of hours of observations that have been added up over the years would not have been possible without the help of the many volunteers and assistants who have offered their time and energy in the cause of science and conservation. Volunteers are one of the most important aspects to the project.

Peru 255

Peru Parrots 2011 Deer 255

10,000 Birds

MARCH 4, 2011

Some have proposed that the Larus gulls were an example of a ring species proposed by the late great Ernst Mayr, but that conclusion has been disputed (convincingly, I would say). Dan is an active member of BirdLife Cyprus and goes birding whenever his career and family allow.

2011 157

2011 Cyprus Deer Breeding 157

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 7, 2014

It’s relatively easy to classify birds into family groups based on physical characteristics. We view them as our enemies when they eat our crops and as an extension of our family when we see them at our feeders. Remarkably, there are 59 bird families that have very little cultural significance; these are listed in Appendix III.

Egypt 216

Egypt Birds Albania Eagles 216

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 4, 2015

How to choose bird feeders; how to make nutritious bird food; how to create a backyard environment that will attract birds; how to survey your feeder birds for citizen science projects; how to prevent squirrels from gobbling up all your black oil sunflower seed (sorry, none of that works). The story of Duncraft is a good example.

America 232

America Squirrels Industry Birds 232

10,000 Birds

MARCH 20, 2011

My friend Vickie Henderson , who has some serious long-range vision, looked at the science behind Tennessee’s crane hunting proposal and found it badly wanting. Ask the proposing states to follow Nebraska’s example, to let them, and their big, desperately imperiled white cousins, alone. Here’s the petition.

2011 242

2011 Hunting Kentucky Hunters 242

10,000 Birds

JUNE 25, 2019

That fallacious family name seems to have encouraged all manner of knaves, dunderheads, and miscreants when time came to label species. Consider some examples: NAMED FOR OTHER BIRDS. For example, the legendary ornithologist Alexander Wilson happened upon in his broad travels a warbler previously undescribed by science.

Rights 113

Rights Connecticut Tennessee Nashville 113

10,000 Birds

JULY 4, 2023

Jennifer Ackerman points out in the introduction to What the Owl Knows: The New Science of the World’s Most Enigmatic Birds , that we don’t know much, but that very soon we may know a lot more. What the Owl Knows: The New Science of the World’s Most Enigmatic Birds is a joyous, fascinating read.

Owls 215

Owls Science Barn Owls Penguins 215