Over the last few years there have been sightings of rare birds in Central Park in New York City. Birders were obviously excited to see the Mandarin Duck, Barred Owl, and recently, a Snowy Owl. Of course, the word gets out and avid birders of all types show up to look for these rarities. Perhaps …
The British naturalist James Fisher wrote that the first person recorded as feeding wild birds was the 6th-century monk Saint Serf of Fife who tamed a pigeon by feeding it, but the first indication of bird feeding in United States came from Henry David Thoreau who fed birds on Walden Pond in 1845. The first …
The Emu, another ratite, is the second-largest living bird after the Ostrich and the largest bird species in Australia where it is found almost all over. Officially, the Spotted or Larger Emu, it is generally just called the Emu because there is only the one species. An adult Emu stands 60-76 inches tall and weighs …
A little lesson on ratites. A ratite is any bird whose sternum (breastbone) is smooth, or raftlike, because it lacks a keel which is required for the anchorage of the main flight muscles, so these are flightless birds The ratites include some of the largest birds of all time, such as the moa and the …
