My So-Called Life
cortex | June 22, 2006Please forgive this post, but as the proud parent of a cockatiel with an inverted beak (a common birth defect), it has long upset me that there is very little information available on the web about birds with this "problem". What little information Google provides generally consists of advice telling people to avoid purchasing cockatiels with beak defects. The advice is all wrong. Our cockatiel - his name is Leo - is a perfectly healthy three year old. Although the pet store was going to sacrifice him (he was deemed unsellable), I actually think his underbite is advantageous. For one thing,…
cortex | June 14, 2006As the proud owner of an African Grey Timneh who is preening herself on my shoulder right now, I thought my bird was adept at impersonations. Her name is Junebug (June to her friends), and she does a spot on imitation of the percolator, Windows startup jingle, blender (not so pleasant), and our cockatiel's morning call. (She's only six months old, and is still learning English. She's very into babbling "Yeah" right now.) But June doesn't compare to this native Australian bird...
cortex | June 8, 2006Writing the first line of your first blog is even harder than starting to write a book. Blogging is an instantaneous conversation, and nobody wants to begin a conversation with a bad beginning. (Plus, you can always change the first line of your book, at least until it's published, and that takes forever.) So I'm nervous right now, and probably too self-conscious. Hopefully, that will fade with time and verbosity.
I'll begin by introducing myself. If you're on scienceblogs.com, you've probably heard of Seed Magazine. I'm a staff writer. Over the last few years, I've had the pleasure of…