birds
grrlscientist | May 5, 2008tags: National Pet Week 2008, companion pets, birds, parrots
Odysseus, screaming his fool head off.
Yellow-bibbed lory, Lorius chlorocercus
Image: GrrlScientist 2008 [larger view].
Okay, as I promised yesterday, I am going to write a series of articles about parrots as pets. Even though I have lived with, bred, raised, trained and researched a variety of birds, I am focusing on parrots as pets because they are generally what people think of first when they talk about pet birds.
The first thing to consider before you ever add a parrot to your household is whether a parrot would make a…
grrlscientist | May 5, 2008tags: Birds in the News, BirdNews, ornithology, birds, avian, newsletter
Male mountain bluebird, Sialia currucoides.
This bird surprised birders in Washington state by visiting Bainbridge Island this past April.
Image: Eva Gerdts, April 2008 [larger view].
Birds in Science
A team of scientists believe they can provide the key to an enduring wildlife mystery: how do birds navigate? Two main theories joust to explain the seemingly miraculous avian compass. One, supported by research among homing pigeons four years ago, is that birds have tiny particles, called magnetite, in their upper…
grrlscientist | May 4, 2008tags: red-winged blackbird, Agelaius phoeniceus, birds, Central Park, Image of the Day
Gerry or George IV.
Male Central Park red-winged blackbird, Agelaius phoeniceus.
Image: Bob Levy, author of Club George [larger].
Here is George IV (or Gerry if you prefer) in a more dignified pose. This is more befitting royalty, don't you think?
grrlscientist | May 3, 2008tags: red-winged blackbird, Agelaius phoeniceus, birds, Central Park, Image of the Day
Gerry or George IV.
Male Central Park red-winged blackbird, Agelaius phoeniceus.
Image: Bob Levy, author of Club George [larger].
Bob Levy writes;
I believe there have been three successive male Red-winged Blackbirds holding the territory on the western half of Turtle Pond in Central Park since the main protagonist of my book Club George reigned there. I have given these males names. I call this one Gerry but the name "George" has become a kind of honorary title at the pond where visitors routinely call…
grrlscientist | May 2, 2008tags: Rufous-crowned Roller, Coracias naevia, birds, Image of the Day
This is the last bird that I will be showing you by this photographer this week. More of John's images are waiting in the queue, and will appear next week.
Rufous-crowned Roller, Coracias naevia.
Image: John Del Rio. [larger view].
laelaps | May 2, 2008In 1944, G.G. Simpson published his important (but often overlooked) book Tempo and Mode in Evolution, one of the key works of the Modern Synthesis that attempted to explain the relevance of paleontology to evolutionary studies. In the Introduction, Simpson includes this passage about the lack of communication between geneticists and paleontologists;
The attempted synthesis of paleontology and genetics, an essential part of the present study, may be particularly surprising and possibly hazardous. Not long ago paleontologists felt that a geneticist was a person who shut himself in a room,…
laelaps | May 2, 2008 If you're a pied babbler (Turdoides bicolor), you've got a bit to worry about while foraging. It's hard to keep watch for predators and eat your fill simultaneously, and trying to do both yourself would mean that you're either going to spend a lot of time looking for a predator that might not be there or that you might be oblivious to the predator that gets you. Fortunately for these birds there are individuals that act as sentinels, and as a new study in Current Biology reports, these sentinels appear to be boosting the feeding success of those they are watching over.
Like some other birds…
grrlscientist | May 1, 2008tags: Andean Cock-of-the-rock, Rupicola peruvianus, birds, Image of the Day
This is the fourth image of a passerine taken by this photographer.
Male Andean (red) Cock-of-the-rock, Rupicola peruvianus.
Image: John Del Rio. [larger view].
This dimorphic species is a medium-sized bird that is native to the cloud forests in the Andes Mountains in South America, being found in Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia. This species is frugivorous and the females choose their mates from among a group of males that display on a communal lek. The species gets its name from the females' habit…
grrlscientist | April 28, 2008tags: lories, loriinae, yellow-bibbed lory, Lorius chlorocercus, parrots, birds, photograph
Odysseus.
Male yellow-bibbed lory, Lorius chlorocercus, April 2008.
Image: GrrlScientist 2008 [larger view].
This parrot is a lory. Lories are a group of nectar-feeding parrots that are from islands in the south Pacific Ocean. This particular species originates on the Solomon Islands. When I lived in Seattle, I had a flock of 8 species (30 individuals) of lories that I bred, raised and trained for most of my life, and I studied the evolution of the lories for my postdoctoral work. When I left…
clock | April 28, 2008(First posted on July 21, 2006) Some plants do not want to get eaten. They may grow in places difficult to approach, they may look unappetizing, or they may evolve vile smells. Some have a fuzzy, hairy or sticky surface, others evolve thorns. Animals need to eat those plants to survive and plants need not be eaten by animals to survive, so a co-evolutionary arms-race leads to ever more bizzare adaptations by plants to deter the animals and ever more ingenious adaptations by animals to get around the deterrents.
One of the most efficient ways for a plant to deter a herbivore is to divert…
grrlscientist | April 28, 2008tags: Birds in the News, BirdNews, ornithology, birds, avian, newsletter
"Abstract"
Male Wood Duck, Aix sponsa.
Image: John Del Rio. [larger view].
Birds in Science
It wasn't too long ago that paleontologists thought that fossilization was a process where all biological material was replaced with inert stone. However, in 2005, Mary Higby Schweitzer of North Carolina State University rocked the paleontological world when she recovered a still-elastic blood vessel from inside a fractured thigh bone fossil of a Tyrannosaurus rex that lived 68 million years ago. Recent phylogenetic analyses of…
grrlscientist | April 26, 2008tags: Northern cardinal, Cardinalis cardinalis, birds, Central Park, Image of the Day
Female Central Park cardinal, Cardinalis cardinalis.
Image: Bob Levy, author of Club George [larger].
Bob Levy writes;
I caught Mama Castle deep into her Yoga session. Here she beautifully demonstrates perfect form in her flawless performance of the Blowing Palm pose. I wish I could do it as well. Sigh.
grrlscientist | April 25, 2008tags: researchblogging.org, evolution, dinosaurs, birds, Tyrannosaurus rex, ornithology, paleontology
The Tyrannosaurus rex femur from which researcher Mary Higby Schweitzer of North Carolina State University recovered soft tissue.
Image: Science.
It wasn't too long ago that paleontologists thought that fossilization was a process where all biological material was replaced with inert stone. However, in 2005, Mary Higby Schweitzer of North Carolina State University rocked the paleontological world when she recovered a still-elastic blood vessel from inside a fractured thigh bone fossil of…
grrlscientist | April 21, 2008tags: Birds in the News, BirdNews, ornithology, birds, avian, newsletter
American White Pelican, Pelecanus erythrorhynchos.
Image: Jerry Kram. [larger size].
People Hurting Birds
Jerrould Smith, a dumbass good ol' boy from Sarasota Florida, is charged with animal cruelty after deputies say he deliberately swerved off the road to run over a protected bird species. Smith admitted he hit a sandhill crane and told deputies it was a "spur of the moment" decision and knew the bird was a protected species. The bird died.
New research debunks the common belief that cats and raccoons are to blame…
grrlscientist | April 20, 2008tags: Birdbooker Report, bird books, natural history books
"One cannot have too many good bird books"
--Ralph Hoffmann, Birds of the Pacific States (1927).
Here's this week's issue of the Birdbooker Report by Ian "Birdbooker" Paulsen, which lists bird and natural history books that are (or will soon be) available for purchase.
FEATURED TITLE:
Dickinson, Emily. Emily Dickinson's Herbarium: A Facsimile Edition. 2006. Belknap/Harvard University Press. Large slipcased folio: 208 pages. Price: $125.00 U.S. [Amazon: $98.00]. SUMMARY: Poet Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) in her youth assembled a…
grrlscientist | April 14, 2008tags: Birds in the News, BirdNews, ornithology, birds, avian, newsletter
"Thy Fearful Symmetry"
Male greater Prairie-chicken, Tympanuchus cupido.
Image: Dave Rintoul, KSU. [larger view].
More of Dave's Greater Prairie-chicken images.
Birds in Science
Seven feathers that either belonged to a non-avian dinosaur or an early bird have been discovered encased in amber in a remarkably vivid state of preservation, according to a recent Proceedings of the Royal Society B study. The 100-million-year-old amber, excavated from a Charente-Maritime quarry in western France, was found near the…
omnibrain | April 14, 2008Sexing chicks is a very difficult task for naive people. Expert chick sexers are over 98% successful while the naive sexers can only do it with slightly above chance performance. Are you sufficiently confused/pissed yet?
Ok ok... here's what's really going on:
When chickens are born the chicks are examined by experts to determine what sex they are. This important task is performed in order to save money in feed costs and avoid conflict between the male and female chicks (the men are selfish and don't let the females eat or drink). What they do with the male chickens I'm not entirely sure.…
grrlscientist | April 13, 2008tags: Ruddy Duck, Oxyura jamaicensis, birds, Image of the Day
Sixth in a series of duck images by this photographer.
Male Ruddy Duck, Oxyura jamaicensis.
Image: John Del Rio. [larger view].
grrlscientist | April 13, 2008tags: Birdbooker Report, bird books, natural history books
"One cannot have too many good bird books"
--Ralph Hoffmann, Birds of the Pacific States (1927).
Here's this week's issue of the Birdbooker Report by Ian Paulsen, which lists bird and natural history books that are (or will soon be) available for purchase.
New and Recent Titles:
Arbour, Claude. Choosing Wildness: My Life Among the Ospreys. 2008. Greystone Books. Paperback: 242 pages. Price: $22.95 U.S. [Amazon: $ 15.61] SUMMARY: The author describes his personal journey from being a high school dropout to becoming one of Quebec's…