Picture of the Day - 16 April 2009

This one falls into the "silly-looking things we do in the name of science" category:

i-6968ab6c5309e20f478415bbae104ae7-16apr09-tm.jpg

This picture was taken when I was helping a fellow grad student out with her project. She was banding and taking a blood sample from the Laysan Albatross that had been sitting on that nest. My job was to stand still and cast enough of a shadow to keep direct sunlight from overheating the egg until the bird was back on the nest.

Tags

More like this

Geese at Standley Lake (soft pastel and charchol on canvas) by Karmen Lee Franklin, 2007 It seems that in life, nothing ever turns out as expected. Over the past week, which was, of course, National Wildlife Week, I participated in the Blogger Bioblitz. The experience was loads of fun, quite…
Barred Owl, Strix varia, with mouse. Photo by AJ Hand. Click on image for a larger view in its own window. Voting has commenced for the 2005 Koufax Awards and Birds in the News was nominated for the Best Series award. Voting is occurring RIGHT NOW to identify the 6-10 top finalists for this…
OK, so that title is a bit glib, but that is definitely how the press is going to spin this story about birds who have stable female-female mating pairs: Almost a third of Laysan albatross nests in the Oahu colony have two mommies. That's the surprise in Lindsay Young's genetic analysis of breeding…
What could've been the national symbol of the USA if Ben Franklin had his way, the wild turkey (meleagris gallopavo) is having a bit of a resurgence as of late. In our neck of the woods (central New York state) they have become a common sight and small bands of them are often seen crossing the…

You make a perfectly adequate sun shade and, if you wish to pursue the option, may have a promising career in the specialty.

Your main competition may be the $12 totes folding umbrella and the 'comes with the $3 soda' quart-size Styrofoam cup. Moderate you remunerative expectations accordingly.

It would have been a much better picture with *two* eggs...
8^)