OMG, we can all finally relax, someone claims to have solved the mystery behind The Birds (the Hitchcock movie and the Daphne du Maurier story). A black-capped chickadee banded in Minnesota is the oldest on record…by four months. Pigeons (aka flying rats) can do math and are smart like monkeys. That wacky North Korean media [ Read More ]
I’m mostly using this post to test out using a bluetooth keyboard with an iPad for blog updates.
This podcast is mostly NBB and I talking about birding apps and NBB giving advice on what to do first if you get a Droid or iPhone for Christmas. These are apps that tickle my fancy, if you would like to add your favorite and why, feel free to do so. Apps mentioned in the [ Read More ]
Whenever I see an article or hear a person dismiss birding as boring, I think, “Oh, bite me.” I mean, how often does a person have an opportunity and good reason to be near a mine field? If anything will take you to those sorts of places, it’s birding. One of the areas we visited [ Read More ]
Thousands of eared grebes crash landed in Utah winding up on football fields, a Walmart parking lot and highways in Utah. At least 3000 live grebes were collected but a low estimate of 1500 grebes died on impact. You can listen to Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s Kevin McGowen talk about it on NPR. An article [ Read More ]
A large part of my trip to Israel was spent at the Agamon Hula in northern part of the country. The story of the cranes in the valley is quite amazing and quite recent. I’ve seen crane migration several times in the US, it’s one of my favorite things to watch and encourage others to [ Read More ]
This week’s news! Has 2011 been the year of the bird penis? I feel like it’s been in the news a lot…at least with ducks. This time, it’s about how ostrich penises reveal that the evolution of a lymphatic erection mechanism likely occurred in the ancestor of all birds rather than within birds. Have you [ Read More ]
I’m still doing some of my bird surveys. And up until this week I was having a cheery time in the field, but now it’s so incredibly silent. I can’t believe this is the same spot that was chock full of bobolinks not so long ago. It’s so strange to suddenly have a spot that [ Read More ]
Have you heard of Larkwire? It’s an interactive website that helps you learn bird songs via a game. It beats the heck out of trying to memorize them. You can check it out here and we have a contest going for Master Birder song pack. And what we’re going to do is have a bird [ Read More ]
Snowy owls are in the news! They are everywhere. Here’s a link to my Google News with “snowy owl” typed in! Some of the most interesting stories: over 100 snowies are reported to be in Wisconsin! And of course the obligatory “a snowy owl killed my dog.” Wondering how to find a snowy owl near [ Read More ]
