I got an email from a BirdForum reader about the Florida gent who claims to have an ivory-bill photo: Sharon, the latest pic (and the first) from the Florida fellow have been discussed on a BirdForum thread and pretty well concluded to be fake (unless he can provide further details/explanation to the contrary); just a [ Read More ]
I posted a while ago about a gent in Florida who had claimed to see an ivory-bill. He had a teeny tiny photo posted which wasn’t convincing at all and got weird and defensive when asked to enlarge the photo. Well, he has a new photo that has birders all over buzzing about “is this [ Read More ]
“You want to collect my WHAT for who?!!!?” Once again an interesting request, this time from Stefan Luepold has shown up on Cornell’s Bird Job Email: REQUEST FOR SPERM SAMPLES FROM ICTERIDS–I plan to collect a large number of sperm samples from birds to study whether differences in mating systems and other ecological factors can [ Read More ]
Here’s one of the female education peregrines at TRC. When I finished the program and took her out back, I accidentally passed by our male education peregrine’s mew. As soon as he saw the female, he bent low and started his squeaky “per-chup call” as a way of flirting. The female on my fist bent [ Read More ]
I gave a program at The Raptor Center today and realized that I forgot to bring out one of the birds when I finished the program. I said, “Oh no, I forgot to bring out and talk about the barred owl!” An older gentleman came up with a serious look and said, “Don’t worry, it [ Read More ]
Something I never noticed before until today: there is a difference between the red on the back of a male hairy woodpecker vs the back of a male downy woodpecker. Can you tell from looking at the red on the two photos below, which one is a downy and which on is a hairy? The [ Read More ]
Today was an odd day–in the 40 degree range in January in Minnesota. These are typically days that you get in March that make you want to run out and buy every plant imaginable for your garden. I however, kept things sensible and purchased a “watch ‘em grow” daffodil-crocus-tulip-hyacinth basket and a few other odds [ Read More ]
Yesterday I got an email from the glycol manager at the Minneapolis/St Paul Airport asking if I knew anyone that might be interested in snowy owl pellets. ME! I went over as soon as I could and collected the four fat beauties. These guys have some heft to them and they’re about as long as [ Read More ]
Remember the California Condor that was convalescing at The Raptor Center? Well, after spending a few weeks in an outdoor flight pen, rebuilding its strength, it has been released out into the wild. Let’s hop it has better luck this time. In other news, there’s a preview out for the-novel-turned-into-a-movie, Hoot. It looks like it’s [ Read More ]
