Birds:
(First posted on July 21, 2006) Some plants do not want to get eaten. They may grow in places difficult to approach, they may look unappetizing, or they may evolve vile smells. Some have a fuzzy, hairy or sticky surface,...
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Posted on April 28, 2008 4:53 PM • 7 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Carel Brest van Kempen, the artist who painted my blog's banner, shows how it is done, in a time-lapse painting clip:...
Posted on March 15, 2008 10:44 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
News from SCONC: On Thursday, March 27 at 4 p.m., the Zoology Department at NCSU will host a seminar from Patricia Brennan of Yale University entitled "The Biology of Avian Genitalia: Form and Function." Brennan's work on the genital anatomy...
Posted on March 7, 2008 7:29 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Today on Quotes of the Day: Harland David Sanders was born at Henryville, Indiana on this day in 1890. His father's death six years later led to Harland doing all the cooking for the family. He left school early and...
Posted on September 9, 2007 11:07 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
The textbook example of commensalism was always the interaction between trees and the birds who make nests in those trees - it was always assumed that the birds gain from this relationships, while the trees are not in any way...
Posted on August 1, 2007 4:54 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
I also saw some seagull chicks, learning to fly, but only took a picture of this cormorant at the Pier 39:...
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Posted on July 22, 2007 5:43 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
A very interesting new paper was published today in PLoS Biology: Flight Speeds among Bird Species: Allometric and Phylogenetic Effects by Thomas Alerstam, Mikael Rosen, Johan Backman, Per G. P. Ericson and Olof Hellgren: Analysing the variation in flight speed...
Posted on July 17, 2007 11:47 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
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Posted on June 16, 2007 2:34 AM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
An interesting paper came out last week in PLoS-Biology: Projected Impacts of Climate and Land-Use Change on the Global Diversity of Birds by Walter Jetz, David S. Wilcove and Andrew P. Dobson. You can view some bloggers' responses on The...
Posted on June 14, 2007 3:24 PM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
From John I learned that Serbia is becoming a birding hot-spot! Two species of pelicans (Pelecanus crispus and Pelecanus onocrotalus), which used to nest in Serbia before but were driven out by draining of marshland for agriculture in the late...
Posted on June 2, 2007 10:45 AM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Welcome to the Fiftieth edition of I And The Bird. It's been a while since I last hosted an edition of this carnival (#19) and it has obviously grown a lot since then. With such diversity of posts, I decided...
Posted on May 31, 2007 12:55 AM • 10 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Fortunately, Janet Reno is still OK. The police brought Bill Clinton to the Orange County Animal Shelter, where he later died. With perfect quote-mining, I made you look, didn't I?...
Posted on May 24, 2007 10:51 PM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Tatjana Jovanovic is a fellow escapee from Serbia and a fellow biologist. She got her MS in Biology at the University of Belgrade and has collected enough data before emigrating to be able to immediately get a PhD if someone...
Posted on May 6, 2007 11:55 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
...because weird sex does not only happen on Fridays.... Remember this? Many have asked themselves (I did) where does it go, i.e., what kind of female genital tract can accomodate such a large penis. But one person actually did not...
Posted on May 1, 2007 8:51 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
John James Audubon was born on his father's plantation in Haiti on this day in 1780. Despite being born of his father's mistress, he was raised in France by his father's wife and educated with other young aristocrats. He took...
Posted on April 26, 2007 10:45 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
When my 'Scientific American' arrived the other day, I was excited to read the article about ravens by Bernd Heinrich, as I loved his book Mind of a Raven. I was also glad to see that new cool experiments have...
Posted on April 10, 2007 6:34 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Eavesdropping Nuthatches Appear To Understand Chickadees In Distress: If Dr. John Watson had been chronicling the work of Christopher Templeton rather than the exploits of Sherlock Holmes, he might have entitled the latest research by Templeton "The Adventure of the...
Posted on March 21, 2007 8:12 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
New Bird Species Found In Idaho, Demonstrates Co-evolutionary Arms Race One does not expect to discover a bird species new to science while wandering around the continental United States. Nor does one expect that such a species would provide much...
Posted on March 19, 2007 2:55 PM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
On this day in 1934 the US adopted the Migratory Bird Hunting and Conservation Stamp Act, commonly known as the Duck Stamp Act. Hunters are required to buy a stamp before bagging migratory birds like ducks and geese, with the...
Posted on March 16, 2007 12:15 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
I and the Bird #44 is up The Greenbelt...
Posted on March 8, 2007 4:49 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
This was a meme I posted back on my birthday last year (May 11, 2006) - it's a shame not to move it to the new archives here.......
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Posted on February 19, 2007 10:57 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
I and the Bird #42 is up on Neurophilosophy blog. Beautiful rendition, formatted like Charles Darwin's diaries from the "Beagle", which - the ship, I mean - as you know (Day 8), is planned to be rebuilt and sailed again,...
Posted on February 8, 2007 3:35 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
For Some Species, An Upside To Inbreeding: Although breeding between close kin is thought to be generally unfavorable from an evolutionary standpoint, in part because harmful mutations are more easily propagated through populations in this way, theory predicts that under...
Posted on February 6, 2007 9:10 AM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Seventeen out of eighteen Whooping Cranes from the Operation Migration were killed by the recent storm in Florida. The one survivor is being tracked right now via radiotransmitter, so the health state is still not known....
Posted on February 5, 2007 9:06 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Perhaps. But we do other stuff just like chicken (December 09, 2004):...
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Posted on December 27, 2006 10:57 AM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Apparently, I am not the only one to see a hummingbird in Chapel Hill of a species that should not be found around here. While I am quite confident that the visitor to my porch was a female Blue-throated Hummingbird,...
Posted on December 19, 2006 2:53 PM • 5 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
I and the Bird (s) #38 is up on Ben Cruachan Blog...
Posted on December 14, 2006 8:21 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
I and the Bird #37 is up on Five Wells....
Posted on November 30, 2006 8:27 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
I And The Bird #35 is up on Migrations....
Posted on October 26, 2006 8:38 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
You may remember that Clark's Nutcracker is one of my favourite birds, so I'll be watching this guy (I am assuming he got his PhD with Nikki Clayton): Researcher Uncovering Mysteries Of Memory By Studying Clever Bird: Scientists at the...
Posted on October 13, 2006 10:02 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
I And The Bird #34 is up on Tortoise Trail....
Posted on October 13, 2006 8:52 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Beyond nest eggs: I and the Bird #33 is up on Don't Mess With Taxes....
Posted on September 28, 2006 9:24 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Mother Birds Give A Nutritional Leg Up To Chicks With Unattractive Fathers: Mother birds deposit variable amounts of antioxidants into egg yolks, and it has long been theorized that females invest more in offspring sired by better quality males. However,...
Posted on September 27, 2006 5:53 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Bird Moms Manipulate Birth Order To Protect Sons: ----------------snip------------------- Since 2002, Badyaev, Oh and their colleagues have been intensively documenting the lives of a population of house finches (Carpodacus mexicanus) on the UA campus. Throughout the year, the researchers capture...
Posted on September 20, 2006 5:56 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Hungry Hyena has an interesting critique of the movie....
Posted on September 16, 2006 2:57 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
I And The Bird #32 is up on Sand Creek Almanac...
Posted on September 14, 2006 1:08 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
New bird species found in India after more than 50 years New Delhi: A striking multi-coloured bird has been discovered in India's remote northeast, making it the first ornithological find in the country in more than half a century, experts...
Posted on September 13, 2006 9:34 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Scientists discover molecule behind birds' magnetic sense: "Some birds, notably migratory species, are able to detect the Earth's magnetic field and use it to navigate. New results from a team of Franco-German researchers suggest that light-sensitive molecules called cryptochromes could...
Posted on September 12, 2006 5:01 PM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
I have a bunch of plants on my porch, mostly ferns, but also some flowers. One of these has really tiny flowers that I thought would be pollinated by small insects - not bigger than a honeybee. So, I was...
Posted on September 7, 2006 9:39 AM • 11 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
The last Passenger Pigeon, named Martha, died in the Cincinnati Zoo on September 1, 1914....
Posted on September 1, 2006 4:31 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
I have never seen these birds around here before, yet, over the last few days I saw tons of them all over the place. Where did they come from? Why do they seem to still be paired this late in...
Posted on August 30, 2006 10:28 PM • 7 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
I And The Bird #31 is up on Migrateblog. Enjoy the poetry leading you to the best bird-writing on the Internet....
Posted on August 30, 2006 10:26 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
This is a summary of my 1999 paper, following in the footsteps of the work I described here two days ago. The work described in that earlier post was done surprisingly quickly - in about a year - so I...
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Posted on August 17, 2006 11:59 AM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
I And The Bird #30 is up on Burning Silo. Get your birding blogging thirst quenched today!...
Posted on August 16, 2006 11:04 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
This post starts with some of my old research and poses a new hypothesis.
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Posted on August 15, 2006 11:59 AM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
One of the assumptions in the study of circadian organization is that, at the level of molecules and cells, all vertebrate (and perhaps all animal) clocks work in roughly the same way. The diversity of circadian properties is understood to...
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Posted on August 15, 2006 10:59 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
This post, from January 25, 2006, describes part of the Doctoral work of my lab-buddy Chris.
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Posted on August 15, 2006 9:59 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
One of the important questions in the study of circadian organization is the way multiple clocks in the body communicate with each other in order to produce unified rhythmic output....
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Posted on August 15, 2006 8:59 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Going into more and more detail, here is a February 11, 2005 post about the current knowledge about the circadian organization in my favourite animal - the Japanese quail.
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Posted on August 14, 2006 11:59 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Moving from relatively simple mammalian model to more complex systems.
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Posted on August 14, 2006 10:59 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
I And The Bird #29 is up on Alis Volat Propiis...
Posted on August 3, 2006 1:43 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Some plants do not want to get eaten. They may grow in places difficult to approach, they may look unappetizing, or they may evolve vile smells. Some have a fuzzy, hairy or sticky surface, others evolve thorns. Animals need to...
Posted on July 21, 2006 10:43 AM • 24 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
I and the Bird #28 is up on Bogbumper...
Posted on July 20, 2006 7:38 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Do you read Darren Naish's blog Tetrapod Zoology? If not, you should start now. Just check out some of the most recent posts, for example this two-parter on sea snakes: 'A miniature plesiosaur without flippers': surreal morphologies and surprising behaviours...
Posted on July 16, 2006 11:44 AM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
The first anniversary edition of I and the Bird is up on 10000 birds....
Posted on July 5, 2006 11:39 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
A delightful World Cup-themed edition of I and the Bird is up on The Hawk Owls' Nest. A great round-up and an excellent example of creative hosting. Next edition is the First Year Anniversary of the carnival, so it...
Posted on June 21, 2006 11:05 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
The Aquatic Ape theory is bunk, but Aquatic Sparrow theory just got a huge boost. There is no way I can explain the Big Evolution News Of The Day as well as Grrrlscientist did, so please go here and enjoy...
Posted on June 15, 2006 4:15 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
SEED Magazine has an interesting article on the advances in avian transgenics.......
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Posted on June 13, 2006 7:02 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Friday, May 26th. Morning After such an exciting and exhausting first day, we gave ourselves the luxury of sleeping late on Friday. After grabbing some bagels and pretzels from street vendors, we took the kids on their first ever ride...
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Posted on June 9, 2006 9:42 PM • 5 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Where did I get my Internet handle? Answer below the fold......
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Posted on June 9, 2006 1:59 PM • 6 Comments • 1 TrackBacks
