Some estimates give 150,000 to 1.5 million as the number of bird species that have ever lived. Most went extinct as the environment changed and evolution created new forms that were better fit for the new circumstances. Evolution occurs via the accumulation of genetic changes. When the changes are sufficient, new species may arise. Typically […]
New Additions to Life List? Read More »
The family Turdidae contains the true thrushes of the world, although there are birds in other families some of which are called thrushes. Turdidae derives from the Latin word turdus, meaning thrush. The familiar American Robin is Turdus migratorius, the wandering thrush. The 88 species of true thrushes, Genus Turdus, have a cosmopolitan distribution across
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Bluebirds, family Turdidae, belong to the genus Sialia, from the Greek meaning “a kind of bird.” Not a very helpful description. The three Sialia species, all North American, are the Eastern Bluebird, Western Bluebird, and Mountain Bluebird, semi-descriptive but not very imaginative names. At 7 inches long with a 13 -inch wingspread, they are small
I earlier blogged about Oology, the study of eggs, actually their shells. In the 19th and early 20th century it was a hobby, like stamp and coin collecting. Eggs were collected from wild birds’ nests, holes made in both ends, and the material inside blown out. They were displayed, sold, and traded, like many collectors’ items today.
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I saw a few Cedar Waxwings the other day, such elegant and poised birds. In their small genus Bombycilla are two other waxwing species: the Bohemian and Japanese Waxwings. Similar in size and shape, all waxwings possess a tapering crest, a black stripe through the eye extending over the beak, usually waxy-appearing tips on the
Richard Dawkins is a British evolutionary biologist and author. He is an emeritus fellow of New College, Oxford. An atheist, he is well known for his criticism of creationism and intelligent design. Dawkins first came to prominence with his 1976 book The Selfish Gene, which popularized the gene-centered view of evolution. He has written a
I led a bird walk a couple of weeks ago and one of the participants pointed out a bird on a power line quite a distance away and said it was yellow. I put my binocs on it just as the Mourning Dove flew off. Learning to identify birds is a fairly easy task if
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I received a comment from a subscriber the other day who asked me to publish a short article in my blog. The piece (if you want to read it) said, in a few short paragraphs, that birds are well adapted for flight with feathers, a light skeleton, and high metabolism, so birds must have been
I regularly hear that birds like eagles, hawks, vultures, swans, and puffins mate for life. There are documented cases of birds mating and maintaining a long -term pair bond that certainly fit the mate for life pattern. At the Wildfowl Trust in Slimbridge, England, swans studied for more than 50 years never showed a single
Mammals, like us, have 23 pairs of chromosomes. One pair comprise the sex chromosomes, one designated X and one Y. An individual with two X chromosomes, XX, is a female, and one with an XY combination is a male. In birds it is reversed. The sex chromosomes in birds are designated Z and W, and
