Brown Thrasher vs. Black Rat Snake.
- Compton Mt, Buchanan County, VA, USA
Photos by Roger Mayhorn
Showing posts tagged bird
Dodo by Peter Schouten
“The Dodo’s external appearance is evidenced only by paintings and written accounts from the 17th century. Because these vary considerably, and because only a few sketches are known to have been drawn from live specimens, its exact appearance in life remains a mystery.”
A male Temminck’s Tragopan (Tragopan temminckii), a type of pheasant, caught on film in the wild in Sichuan, China recently by a World Wildlife Fund camera trap.
(read more: Live Science) (photo: WWF China/Peking Univ.)
Freckled Ducks (Stictonetta naevosa), male (top) and female. Native to southern Australia, it is protected by law in all states. The ducks are easily identified by their large heads with a peaked crown. The Freckled Duck feeds by dabbling in shallow water, often by wading near the edge. It prefers large, well-vegetated swamps, but moves to open water after breeding or in dry periods.
(photo: Benjamint444) (via: Wikipedia)
Roseate Spoonbills (Platalea ajaja) near Harlingen, South TX, USA. No matter how many times one sees it, giant pink birds taking off is always a thrill.
photo by M. Fuller
Why Do Penguins Fly Not?
by Traci Watson
Long, long ago, O Best Beloved, the ancestor of the penguins could soar through the air. So why did the penguin give up flight? Rudyard Kipling never wrote a Just So story with an answer, but now scientists have one: The penguin doesn’t fly because it would rather swim.
A new study of murres, penguinlike seabirds that retain the ability to take wing, shows just how costly and inefficient it is to be both a diver and a flyer. The new findings back the long-held hypothesis that penguins gave up the heavens more than 70 million years ago to become kings of the waves.
“This study contributes a lot by putting hard numbers on the energy costs of moving through both the aerial and aquatic realms,” writes Daniel Ksepka of North Carolina State University in Raleigh, who studies penguin evolution and was not involved with the research, in an e-mail…
(read more: Science News/AAAS)
(photo: Kyle H. Elliott; (inset) Samuel Blanc)
Scissor-tailed Flycatchers (Tyrannus forficatus)
Female Scissor-tailed Flycatchers select males to pair with, based on the male’s ornate tail plumes. Males will perform elaborate aerial courtship displays to females, showing off their tails, to try to encourage her to mate. Longer tail feathers are more energetically costly to grow and maintain, so a male with very long tail feathers must therefore be in top physical shape. Males with longer feathers are typically snatched up sooner than those with shorter tails. Scissor-tailed Flycatchers are kingbirds, members of the flycatcher genus Tyrannus, along with the closely-related Fork-tailed Flycatcher.
photo by Ken Slade - TexasEagle | Flickr
(via: Peterson’s Field Guides)
Richard Barnes
Images from the ‘Murmur’ series, 2005
Flocks of european starlings flying above Rome and its suburbs.
Red-keeled Flowerpecker (Dicaeum australe)
Also known as the red-striped flowerpecker, the red-keeled flowerpecker is a species of passerine bird endemic to the Philippines. Like most flowerpeckers the red-keeled flowerpecker feeds mainly on nectar and berries (and insects) which it collects with its modified tongue tip. The Black-belted Flowerpecker (D. haematostictum) was once thought to be a subspecies of the red-keeled flowerpecker but recent data shows it as a separate species.
Phylogeny
Animalia-Chordata-Aves-Passeriformes-Dicaeidae-Dicaeum-asutrale
Conservationists to count breeding birds after ‘puffin wreck’ winter
Nipped fingers and handfuls of guano will be the order of the day for wildlife rangers on the Farne Islands as they embark on an epic census on Friday to discover whether puffin numbers have plummeted after a year of extreme weather.
The 10 National Trust rangers living on the islands must dangle their bare fingers down 60,000 puffin burrows in the next two months to determine whether breeding pairs have fallen after the worst puffin “wreck” for 66 years.
The wreck in March, which saw 3,500 birds wash up dead along the north-east coast of Britain, was caused by icy easterly winds. It followed a summer when the puffins on the archipelago off Northumberland were flooded out of their underground homes, with more than 40% failing to breed…
(read more: The Guardian)
Conservation for Migratory Birds
Today we announced $25 million to conserve habitats for migratory waterfowl, shorebirds, waterbirds, and landbirds.
With the help of U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service_Federal Duck Stamp dollars and North American Wetlands Conservation Act grants, USFWS and partners will conserve more than 170,000 acres.
Learn more: http://www.fws.gov/
photo: Northern Pintail Ducks, byJM Garg
A frisky male Gambel’s Quail (Callipepla gambelii) welcomes volunteers to Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge in New Mexico, USA.
(via: Bosque del Apache NWR) (photo: Wayne Washam)
My Season of Spring Migration on the Texas Coast
Though Spring migration of birds isn’t over yet this year, its winding down along the Gulf Coast of Texas. Its been a good year for me, as it was a good year in general in SE Texas. This is a major stop and refuel area for birds who have spent the winter in central and South America, and are migrating back to their breeding range, in more northerly climes.
I had 3 birds that kept eluding me season after season, and I had hoped to get at least one of them this season. However, I GOT ALL 3!!! These 3 birds are rare here, but not unheard of. I saw a Swainson’s Warbler (bttm), a very secretive bird, here at the park where I work, and finally saw a Black-billed Cuckoo (2nd row) and a Cape May Warbler (top R), who usually migrate far east of here, at the bird watching mecca of High Island, TX.
I’ve also seen a lot of shorebirds this season, and I’m still hoping to get a Blackpoll Warbler, Yellow-throated Warbler; Prairie Warbler, and Black-throated Blue Warbler.
Here’s me season’s list for this year so far…
- Blue-winged Warbler, Vermivora cyanoptera
- Golden-winged Warbler, V. chrysoptera
- Tennessee Warbler, Oreothlypis peregrina
- Orange-crowned Warbler, O. celata
- Nashville Warbler, O. ruficapilla
- Black-and-white Warbler, Mniotilta varia
- Hooded Warbler, Setophaga citrina
- American Redstart. S. ruticilla
- Cape May Warbler, S. tigrina
- Cerulean Warbler, S.cerulea
- Northern Parula, S. americana
- Magnolia Warbler, S. magnolia
- Bay-breasted Warbler, S. castanea
- Blackburnian Warbler, S. fusca
- Yellow Warbler, S. petechia
- Chestnut-sided Warbler, S. pensylvanica
- Pine Warbler, S. pinus
- Yellow-rumped Warbler, S. coronata
- Black-throated Green Warbler, S. virens
- Prothonotary Warbler, Protonotaria citrea
- Worm-eating Warbler, Helmitheros vermivorus
- Swainson’s Warbler, Limnothlypis swainsonii
- Ovenbird, Seiurus aurocapillus
- Northern Waterthrush, Parkesia noveboracensis
- Louisiana Waterthrush, P. motacilla
- Kentucky Warbler, G. formosus
- Mourning Warbler, G. philadelphia
- Common Yellowthroat, G. trichas
- Wilson’s Warbler, Cardellina pusilla
- Canada Warbler, C. canadensis
- Yellow-breasted Chat, Icteria virens
- Veery, Willow Thrush or Wilson’s Thrush, Catharus fuscescens
- Gray-cheeked Thrush, C. minimus
- Swainson’s Thrush, C. ustulatus
- Wood Thrush, Hylocichla mustelina
- Black-billed Cuckoo, Coccyzus erythropthalmus
- Yellow-billed Cuckoo, C. americanus
- Indigo Bunting, Passerina cyanea
- Painted Bunting, P. ciris
- Rose-breasted Grosbeak, Pheucticus ludovicianus
- Baltimore Oriole, Icterus galbula
- Orchard Oriole, Icterus spurius
- Scarlet Tanager, Piranga olivacea
- Summer Tanager, Piranga rubra
- Western Tanager, Piranga ludoviciana
(photos: TL - Steve Maslowski, USFWS; TR - American redstart by Snowmanradio; 1Mid - Big Dipper2 | Flickr; 3L - Blackburnian Warbler by Mdf ; 3R - Painted Bunting by Dan Pancamo; Bttm - Julio Mulero | Flickr)
A Magnolia Warbler (Setophaga magnolia) male takes some time out from spring migration to frolick in a bird bath at Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge in Southern TX, USA.
(via: Laguna Atascosa NWR)
Kentucky Warbler (Geothlypis formosus)
A rich, rolling “churee churee churee” rings out from the lush understory of the woods, then the songster itself flits up to a low branch and sounds out again. This golden and olive warbler with the black mustache spends much of its time on the ground in deep woods, where it nests, but the patient birder can often catch a glimpse of one, especially as males stake out their territories each spring.
The Kentucky Warbler’s characteristic loud song is heard less frequently today, and continued losses of bottomland hardwood forests across the southeastern United States may be the reason why. However, destruction of habitat on its wintering grounds through clearing for agriculture and pasture may pose an even greater threat…
(read more: American Bird Conservancy)
(photo: Greg Lavaty)
