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
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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
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I’ve discussed the intelligence of birds like crows before. Let’s look a bit more into the subject in a little more scientific depth. Why do mammals like dogs, coyotes, cats, and horses learn all kinds of behaviors in the wild or from their trainers while birds mostly act by instinct? It mostly has to do
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The Golden Fleece Award (1975–1988) was a tongue-in-cheek award given by Senator William Proxmire to public officials in the United States for squandering public money, its name taken from the actual Order of the Golden Fleece, a prestigious award created in the late-15th Century. Examples of awards were those given to the United States Department
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Ever hear the myth about not throwing rice at weddings because the birds that eat the grains will blow up when the rice expands? That would come as a real surprise to rice farmers who spend a lot of time and effort to keep birds from eating their crop. The other carbohydrate-related story is that
I’m just beginning work on my 11th book, tentatively called An Atlas of Birds. Organized a bit like a geographic atlas, it will feature birds from each of nine biogeographical regions of the world. (although some say there are anywhere from six to twelve major biogeographical regions.) The goal is to choose 35 or so
West of the Mississippi from Canada to Central America lives the Burrowing Owl. These small, brownish tan-colored owls with bright yellow eyes are the only raptors in North America that live underground in burrows they dig themselves or usurp from a ground squirrel or tortoise. In open habitats like grasslands and deserts, they eat rodents
I read about a parrot that testified in court against the wife of his owner. The wife shot her husband and the parrot heard “don’t shoot, don’t shoot” which it repeated in court. The jury convicted her. Could be a good reason to have or not have a parrot at home. Parrots were domesticated by
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Are you reading a lot these days of social isolation? I read that an average of one bird book a day is published in the U.S. Seems like it because there sure are a lot of bird books out there and they seem to be arriving at an unwavering pace. There are field guides, like
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A few years ago I received an email from someone in Hawaii wondering why so many pigeons on Maui were missing toes. I had no idea so I emailed the ornithologist at the University of Hawaii and she responded that with many people with long hair lying on the beaches leave bits of their tresses
