Posts
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| Snowy Egret / Photo by Gregg Aronson/USFWS |
- If you have not seen them already, it is really worth checking out David Sibley's ongoing series of posts on bird song identification. There are three posts so far: Learning to Listen to Bird Songs, Pitch, and bird song identification, and Tempo, and bird song identification.
- Birds that have more than one color morph evolve new species faster than those that only have one color morph.
- The Peruvian government does not have a clear answer as to why 877 dolphins and over 1,500 seabirds have turned up dead on its shores since February. The dolphins may have been killed by a virus, and the seabirds may have starved due to a lack of anchovies offshore. The affected seabirds are mostly Brown Pelicans and Blue-footed Boobies.
- Researchers set up camera traps around penguin colonies in Antarctica to record aspects of penguin behavior that usually go unseen by humans due to the extreme cold.
- A birdwatcher in Los Angeles intervened to keep an active raven nest from being destroyed during a construction project.
- Two of the tagged Common Cuckoos completed their return journeys to the U.K. this week, which makes them the first cuckoos to have their annual migration fully mapped.
- Female Brown-headed Cowbirds seem to be attracted to more modest courtship displays rather than more flamboyant ones.
- A Bald Eagle that had been shot, poisoned, and hit by a car in a Philadelphia suburb has made enough of a recovery to be released. The eagle was released at Ridley Creek State Park.
- Biologists are moving endangered Nene away from an airport on Kauai to avoid collisions with airplanes. About 300 Nene will be moved to Maui and Hawaii.
- On the road: Seasonal variation in Central American Sedge Wren songs?
- The Birder's Library: Review: Cerulean Blues: A Personal Search for a Vanishing Songbird
- Dinosaur Tracking: Media Blows Hot Air About Dinosaur Flatulence
- The Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf in Antarctica is more vulnerable to melting than climate scientists had previously thought. Warm currents in the Weddell Sea threaten to melt the ice shelf from below.
- A new study examines how female pirate bugs adapt to the costs of traumatic insemination. Some will lay more eggs than other females to make up for their shorter lifespan.
- Biologists in Guam are trying to fight the invasive Brown Tree Snake in Guam by dropping dead mice laced with acetaminophen, which reduces pain and fever in humans but is deadly to snakes. Officials are also trying to prevent the snakes from leaving the island and establishing themselves elsewhere by inspecting all luggage of air travelers with snake-sniffing dogs.
- Lakes in the High Peaks area of the Adirondack Mountains are frozen in winter for a shorter period than they were 32 years ago. The five lakes in question are frozen for 7-21 fewer days each winter. The biggest change was at the most pristine lake, Wolf Lake.
