You may have marveled at the spectacular and elegant control albatrosses have over their above ocean flights. You may be familiar with dynamic soaring, the method albatrosses use to remain aloft over the ocean for days, covering as much as 3000 miles a week, as measured by bird-borne video flight loggers. Feeding at sea, young […]
I previously wrote a post explaining why birds don’t fall out of trees while they are sleeping. Not falling out of a tree has to do with the arrangement of muscles and tendons on the lower legs, but this explanation mainly applies to those birds in the Order Passeriformes, the Perching Birds. But not to
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.
Oology and Museums Read More »
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
The Cretaceous, a geological period that lasted from about 145 to 66 million years ago, is the third and final portion of the Mesozoic Era, as well as the longest. In the early Cretaceous, the continents were in very different positions than they are today. There was a major landmass, a supercontinent called Pangaea. By
The Cretaceous Extinction and Beaked Birds Read More »
Previously I described what it takes to do ornithological research, culminating in, hopefully, a published paper. Where would you publish this? There are a number of places, but peer-reviewed research is typically published in a format called a journal like The Wilson Journal of Ornithology, Australian Field Ornithology, Journal of Avian Biology, Journal of Ornithology,
Want to Publish in Ornithology? A Challenge Read More »
Bird populations have been declining over the past half century. Perhaps 40 percent of North America’s birds have disappeared during that time – over 3.5 billion birds! According to the IUCN Red List, 23 percent of the world’s birds are threatened or near-threatened, and 44 percent have declining populations. On field trips I used to
Birds are not only for Watching Read More »
Research in ornithology is not just a willy-nilly collection of observations while walking through the woods. How does one start a research project? First, you have to develop a hypothesis – a question you would like to answer. Let’s suppose you are curious about the prevalence of partial albinism (leucistic plumage) in House Sparrows. What
Want to do Ornithological Research? Read More »
According to The Illustrated Book of Poultry Queen Victoria was captivated by watching her seven chickens in their custom enclosure. While royalty are not known for admiring poultry as do farmers, in 1842 Queen Victoria started what would become an international craze for fancy chickens, just because they were beautiful to look at. These were Cochin chickens or
Queen Victoria and Her Chickens Read More »
James Bond is a fictional character created by novelist Ian Fleming in 1953. A British secret agent working for MI6 under the codename 007, he has been portrayed on film by actors Sean Connery, David Niven, George Lazenby, Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton, Pierce Brosnan and Daniel Craig in twenty-seven productions. From Ian Fleming, The New Yorker,
