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Israel?s new National Bird
2008-05-30 17:59:00 It’s the Hoopoe! After an exhaustive process, the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel determined the Hoopoe was the right bird for Israel. According to President Peres - 500 million birds pass through Israel’s skies annually. He wasn’t referring specifically to the Hoopoe, but that’s a lot of bird for a country with ...
By: Bird Brain Blog
How do they Do That?
2008-05-15 17:26:00 Ever wonder how shorebirds like the Phalarope manage to get the water and food bits to travel uphill through their long beaks and into their mouths? Well, so have scientists. And this article seems to pose a reasonable explanation to that age old mystery. How birds make water defy gravity
By: Bird Brain Blog
Ornithology
2008-03-12 11:51:00 It was 53 years ago that Charlie Parker died (ostensibly from pneumonia but more than likely from years of alcohol and drug abuse) while famously watching television. Legend has it that at the moment he passed, a tremendous thunder-clap could be heard in the skies over New York City. Also legendarily, the doctor who attended to Bird?s lifeless body estimated his age to be between 50 and 60 years old. Parker was actually only 34 - he would have been 87 this year.What more can be said about Bird? The fluidity of his saxophone lines, the blisteringly fast solos, the pure inspiration he called on to challenge himself to increasingly complex improvisations, often on songs played many, many times before ? all part of the lore of bebop. Yet perhaps not enough has been said about his truly unique and gifted way of ?borrowing? from existing chord structures to create new tunes. Several songs that Parker wrote are ?based on? the chordal changes of other jazz or pop standards, like Bird?...
By: Theory NOW
Houston 2nd Graders Get Purple Martins
2008-02-22 18:45:00 2nd Graders at Meadow Wood Elementary in Houston are a lucky bunch. They’re getting early bird training. With a mini grant, they have a bunch of purple martin houses to put on outside their classroom so they can watch and observe. It’s Purple Martin time again and the 2nd graders there will learn ...
By: Bird Brain Blog
Assistant Professor - Mammology and Ornithology, Texas A&M
2008-02-13 03:19:00 Texas A&M University Department of Wildlife and Fisheries Sciences Faculty Positions in Mammalogy and Ornithology The Department of Wildlife and Fisheries Sciences, one of the largest in the nation, has extended the search to fill the following two positions: Assistant Professor of Ornithology in Wildlife and Fisheries Sciences and Curator of Birds, Texas Cooperative Wildlife Collection (TCWC
New bird discovered in Nepal
2008-02-05 20:23:00 A previously unknown sub-species of Warbler has been discovered in the southern grasslands of Nepal. The bird fills in an important geographical gap in previously-known varieties in Pakistan and India. ‘New type of bird’ found in Nepal
By: Bird Brain Blog
Yellow Rail Goes off Track
2008-01-22 19:45:00 Birders in the San Francisco bay area had an interesting sighting; a Yellow Rail. Only thing is, this bird is native to the Gulf Coast - oops wrong coast! Arrowhead Marsh is a popular stopover on a west coast migration path called the ‘Pacific Flyway’ and it’s also popular spot for bird-watchers. The watchful birders ...
By: Bird Brain Blog
Say?s Phoebe Spotted in Florida
2008-01-03 17:55:00 Say’s Phoebe has been spotted in Florida and is creating a bit of a stir. While these birds are common west of the Mississippi, sightings in Florida are rare. Prior to last month’s sighting, the bird had not been recording in Florida since 1975. We might just chalk this up to the bird getting lost ...
By: Bird Brain Blog
Lost Wisconsin Hummingbird Gets Winter Home
2007-11-09 21:57:00 The Green-breasted mango hummingbird reported in this blog post, is getting a helping hand from the local birders. Thanks to some caring birders, the mango will not have to brave the cold Wisconsin winter and will be able to winter at a local zoo. Not everyone is happy with this however. Sheri Williamson says this should ...
By: Bird Brain Blog
Must Have Birding Book
2007-11-04 19:33:00 I just finished, or I should say, I have just finished flipping through the book “Bird - The Definitive Visual Guide”. It’s not a book you read, it’s a reference. It has stunning visual photos and renderings in it and will be at home either on the coffee table or out in the ...
By: Bird Brain Blog
German Researchers find Clue to Bird Migration
2007-09-29 20:31:00 How exactly do birds know when and where to migrate? We’ve always chalked it up to evolutionary adaptation, but scientists may have found a clue in their vision system. The study says that birds ’see’ the Earth’s magnetic field as a visual pattern, which presumably aids them in migration. Migrating birds may see Earth’s magnetic field
By: Bird Brain Blog
California Boy has Bright Future in Birding Photography
2007-09-28 23:36:00 Ben Knoot, a San Mateo middle school student is a serious photographer of birds. He has won awards for his photography and recently a photo he took of the an American Bittern was featured in Ranger Rick magazine. His work can be viewed at his website (link here). It’s amazing work for an 11 year ...
By: Bird Brain Blog
Southern Wisconsin Birders descend on Rare Find
2007-09-23 19:23:00 Bird watchers in or around the town of Beloit WI are going to flock to this place because someone sighted a Green-breasted Mango. Wow, now that’s far north for that bird. It’s a tropical hummingbird rarely seen north of Mexico. I hope it finds its way home soon! It’s going to get chilly up there soon. Rare ...
By: Bird Brain Blog
Organize a Birding Field Trip
2007-09-16 17:12:00 Organize a Birding Field Trip Below is a story about local bird watching trip. Mundane to read about because I wish we could have gone! But what about organizing your own trip? The trip below was just a small group of people led and organized by an expert birder with 25 years behind her. If you’re experienced ...
By: Bird Brain Blog
Gotwit makes Incredible Journey
2007-09-15 19:13:00 A Bar-Tailed Gotwit stunned ornithologists with what is the longest non-stop flight ever recorded. The gotwits winter in New Zealand and summer in Alaska. That of course is coming from the perspective of my being in the Northern Hemisphere. The ‘winter’ I referred to is actually summer in the Southern Hemisphere. Anyway, 16 of the many ...
By: Bird Brain Blog
San Diego Park Closes Aviary
2007-09-13 18:31:00 The San Diego Wild Animal Park closed it aviary due to the mysterious death of 10 lorikeets. Apparently West Nile is not to blame here but it is unusual for so many birds of a feather to die like that. Lorikeets are incredibly colorful small parrots with rainbow feathers. The birds in this aviary were trained ...
By: Bird Brain Blog
The Strange Debate over the Trumpeter Swan
2007-09-11 04:31:00 When I have time to spare, I like to pick up an Audubon or the birding magazine. Today I ran across this article called The Big Flap from 2005. It talks about the issues surrounding the reintroduction of the Trumpeter Swan to the East Coast of the US. The big question in the debate over whether to ...
By: Bird Brain Blog
Ornithology, Evolution, and Philosophy: The Life and Science of Ernst Mayr
2007-08-24 07:34:00 Author: Jürgen HafferPaperback: 350 pagesPublisher: Springer; 1 edition (September 2007)Language: EnglishISBN: 3540717773(R)This book is the first detailed biography of Ernst Mayr. He was an ‘architect’ of the Synthetic Theory of Evolution, and the greatest evolutionary biologist since Charles Darwin, influential historian and philosopher of biology, outstanding taxonomist and ornithologist, and naturalist. He is one of the most widely known biologists of the 20th century. Mayr used the theories of natural selection and population thinking as theoretical models within the framework of historical biological studies. He suggested that various competing paradigms may exist side by side and more or less pronounced ’revolutions’ may occur in different fields from time to time. Changes of concepts have a much stronger effect on the development of biological sciences than the discovery of new facts. Mayr was the first to emphasize the role of biopopulations, thereby pointing o... |
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