Aves (birds)
gregladen | December 7, 2010One day, about ten years ago, we were having a strong southerly fetch with small tornadoes popping out of the stormy front, so Julia and I were keeping an eye out the windows, watching wall clouds form and unform over our heads. Then, suddenly, there were these two ducks flying south, coming up over the houses across the street. They flew up into the air and beat their wings against the strong wind, not making any ground at all, and then finally, fell back out of our view. I'd seen these ducks before. By day they foraged to the north on the Metronics property, but roosted to the south,…
gregladen | September 9, 2010Much in the same way that "woodpeckers" have evolved several times (most are birds that look like each other, but then there is the aye-aye and Darwin's finch), one can say that the nightjars are birds poking around in the insect-eating bat niche.
Nightjars are crepuscular birds also known as goatsuckers. The most commonly seen nightjars in the US are probably nighthawks. The Whip-poor-will is one. If you've traveled much in Africa, then you may just know of them as "Nightjars" as in "Whoa, Rafiei, what was that bird that just flew out of the dirt road past our headlights?" ... "That was…
gregladen | August 20, 2010This is the most challenging time of year for duck watching. But it may be easier than one thinks to bump into a wolf in the forest.
We've been exploring the western side of the north-central part of the state, in and around Itasca as far west at Tamarack Wildlife Refuge, where we saw several fine herds of tamarack clustered in the usual low flat areas they prefer.
Duck watching this time of year is very hard. In the beginning of the season the males are in full bloom. Females found near males are almost always of the same species. (Unless the male is a mallard. They do not…
gregladen | August 19, 2010
This bird was spotted eating a small bird in the Hyde Park area of Chicago. What is it?
gregladen | August 18, 2010Emerging infectious diseases do not only affect humans. Wildlife is threatened as well, and an alarming report from Britain documents an avian tragedy of great proportions.
Emerging protozoan caused diseases are seriously affecting British populations of Carduelis chloris, the greenfinch, and and chaffinch Fringilla coelebs, a chaffinch, two of Britian's most common birds.
The offending organism is a new and fatal disease first found in Britain's finches in 2005, Trichomonas gallinae. Within two years of its appearance, greenfinch breeding populations ad decreased by 35%, and chaffinch…
gregladen | July 23, 2010There are several characteristics that make up a field guide. It should be "pocket size" (and birders have huge pockets, so this may not be as much of a restriction as it sounds). It should cover the geographical region in which you are watching the birds, although in some remote areas of the world you may not have this luxury. During my years working in Zaire, we had only a Southern African bird guide, and made due. And the book should be of the right kind and level for your needs.
By level, I mean beginner or advanced. Sadly, most bird book publishers assume that there is a gene for…
gregladen | July 10, 2010One of those really cool and useful "evolution stories" gets verified and illuminated by actual research. And blogging!
An oystercatcher is a wading bird of the family Haematopodidae, distributed in one genus, Haematopus. As is the case with many coast loving birds, there has been confusion about the limits of the 11 or so species known to exist worldwide. That itself is an interesting story (Hocke 1996), but one we will not go into now.
Adult coastal oystercatchers (some species are not coastal) eat all sorts of animals found in the intertidal zone, including shellfish of all sorts,…
gregladen | May 7, 2010I have now been out for two drives in a row during which I did NOT see a bald eagle. Until now, almost every drive I've been on this year had yielded at least one. But, there is always something: last night a big red tail and the other day the usual egrets and an urban vulture.
But I would have had very different, and interesting luck had I gone to the Twins game last night.
A miniature falcon, which I assume was a kestrel, found a hunting perch in the stadium, and from that location grabbed and consumed a number of moths, as the fans watched and cheered. There are two especially…
gregladen | April 18, 2010It has long been thought that there are linkages between certain viruses and the weather. The flu season is winter (in whichever hemisphere it happens to be winter in) for reasons having to do with the seasons. One early theory posited that the practices of East Asian farmers, as they tended their animals, caused waterfowl and swine and humans to share space closely enough that nasty new influenzas would emerge and spread around the world. Although that explanation for the annual seasonal flu has been dropped (if it ever really had wings... or hooves, or whatever) it is still possible…
gregladen | December 31, 2009Rush Limbaugh Loses it all the time. Glen Beck loses it all the time. In the left, Kieth Olbermann loses it about one a week. Chris Matthews is constantly on the verge of losing it. That guy from Court TV lost it too often and he lost his show.
Now, Rachel Maddow loses it. And, as we expect, she does it better than the rest of them times 106
You have to wait until after the parrot mates with they guy's head.
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
You are being shagged by a rare parrot!
gregladen | December 2, 2009The Bird Count is Coming Up!
110th Annual Audubon Count Yields Data Vital to Conservation
New York, NY, December 1, 2009 - The longest running Citizen Science survey in the world, Audubon's annual Christmas Bird Count (CBC) will take place from December 14, 2009 through January 5, 2010. From Alaska to Antarctica, tens of thousands of volunteers will add a new layer to over a century of bird population information.
Scientists rely on this remarkable trend data to better understand how birds are faring, and what needs to be done to protect them and the environment we share. Data from…
gregladen | November 15, 2009These are starlings:
Bonus Video:
I prefer the non-fiction birds.
Hat Tip: Analiese
gregladen | November 3, 2009This is truly amazing. Of course, since this is the first such video, how do we know if this particular little guy is doing it right?
First video of the Marvelous Spatuletail Hummingbird's amazing courtship display by Greg R. Homel, Natural Elements Productions and distributed by American Bird Conservancy, http://www.abcbirds.org. This rare humminbird inhabits the highlands of Peru.
gregladen | October 26, 2009You know the drill: Someone claims to see a golden eagle (Aquila chrysaetos) but then some wise-ass bird expert has to tell them that "Immature bald eagles are often mistaken for golden eagles. You saw a bald eagle, not a golden eagle." Reminds me of the bird expert lady in The Birds (which we watched just the other day) ... boy was she wrong!
Anyway, golden eagles have been traversing the state of Minnesota, and occasionally wintering here, for quite some time, and only recently are people really taking notice, counting them as real, and even starting to study them.
So, it was very…
gregladen | September 28, 2009The scientific evidence is overwhelming and unequivocal, climate change is a stark reality. It is largely caused by human activities and it presents very serious global risks for people and biodiversity around the world and it demands an urgent global response. Human activities, especially the burning of fossil fuels, are releasing rapidly increasing levels of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide. This is causing the atmosphere to heat up. We do not have the luxury of standing by for years before the world gets round to making a serious attempt to cut its emissions. The next few years will…
gregladen | September 11, 2009The last wild Fiji petral specimen collected, an albatross-like bird (as petrels tend to be) that spends much of its time over the open sea, was collected in 1855 fro Gau Island, Fiji.
It didn't really go extinct, because in 1984 one was caught on Gua, photographed, and set free. Subsequently, possible Fiji petrel sightings have occurred now and then, mostly of disoriented or lost immature birds that showed up in one village or another.
So, as you can see, calling this bird truly extinct was never really appropriate, but it was listed as one of nearly 200 birds that may or may not have…
gregladen | September 6, 2009The loons have been strangely silent all weekend, and I have been singularly distracted from them, so it was not until this morning that I realized that the adults are gone.
Well, they are not totally gone, but they are in a transitional phase. I think they are starting to spend time in their staging area. Adult loons, at some point late in the season (and though I shall remain in denial the season is starting to laten) begin to gather at a specific staging area, either a part of a larger lake (as in the case of my loons) or in some intermediary pond or lake. They form a flock, and then…
gregladen | September 2, 2009Today's falsehood is the idea that individual animals act for the benefit of their own species.
Let me give you an example. When I was a kid, I watched a nature show about cougars. The show 'documented' a single female cougar going about doing cougar-things and being generally cougar-like. At one point she had cute little baby cougar kittens.
Then a flood came. The stream near her chosen lair swelled its banks and threatened to drown the kittens. So, she carried one of the kittens up the hill to a new lair. She went back to get the second kitten, and the flood waters were even higher…
gregladen | August 27, 2009BirdLife International is launching a global bid to try to confirm the continued existence of 47 species of bird that have not been seen for up to 184 years.
The list of potentially lost birds is a tantalising mix of species ranging from some inhabiting the least visited places on earth - such as remote islands and the western Himalayas - to those occurring in parts of Europe and the United States.
"The mention of species such as Ivory-billed Woodpecker, Jamaican Petrel, Hooded Seedeater, Himalayan Quail, and Pink-headed Duck will set scientists' pulses racing. Some of these species haven't…