ornithology
grrlscientist | January 12, 2009tags: Black-chinned Sparrow, Spizella atrogularis, birds, mystery bird, bird ID quiz
[Mystery bird] Black-chinned Sparrow, Spizella atrogularis, photographed in Boyce Thompson Arboretum Demo Garden, Superior, Arizona. [I will identify this bird for you tomorrow]
Image: Richard Ditch, 2006 [larger view].
Date Time Original: 2006:02:25 08:54:01
Exposure Time: 1/60
F-Number: 11.00
ISO: 200
Please name at least one field mark that supports your identification.
Rick Wright, Managing Director of WINGS Birding Tours Worldwide, writes:
It's good in a new year to start over again at the beginning…
grrlscientist | January 11, 2009tags: Orange-crowned Warbler, Vermivora celata, birds, mystery bird, bird ID quiz
[Mystery bird] Orange-crowned Warbler, Vermivora celata, photographed in Allen Williams Yard, Pharr, Texas. [I will identify this bird for you tomorrow]
Image: Joseph Kennedy, 2 April 2008 [larger view].
Nikon D200, Kowa 883 telescope TSN-PZ camera eyepiece 1/60s f/8.0 at 1000.0mm iso400.
Please name at least one field mark that supports your identification.
Rick Wright, Managing Director of WINGS Birding Tours Worldwide, writes:
It's a yellow warbler -- but it's not a Yellow Warbler. Note that this is a…
tetrapodzoology | January 8, 2009
Here we are, at the beginning of 2009. And here's where I get that horrible feeling that - on the 'things to do for 2008' list - so many things remain incomplete. Among these are a number of Tet Zoo posts that were cutting-edge and topical when I started them, yet are now not so cutting-edge, and not so topical. Whatever: here's a brief article I'd planned to publish months ago. It concerns the Bulo Burti boubou Laniarius liberatus, a bush-shrike described in 1991 on the basis of a single individual captured in central Somalia (Smith et al. 1991) [adjacent photo © E. F. G. Smith]. Bush-…
grrlscientist | January 8, 2009tags: Clay-colored Sparrow, Spizella+pallida, birds, mystery bird, bird ID quiz
[Mystery bird] Clay-colored Sparrow, Spizella pallida, photographed in Marymoor Park, Redmond, King County, Washington State. [I will identify this bird for you tomorrow]
Image: Marv Breece, 7 October 2006 [larger view].
Canon EOS 350D 1/400s f/8.0 at 300.0mm iso400.
Please name at least one field mark that supports your identification.
Rick Wright, Managing Director of WINGS Birding Tours Worldwide, writes:
The first step in identifying sparrows is to eliminate as many species as possible -- and the best…
grrlscientist | January 7, 2009tags: African Jacana, Actophilornis africanus, birds, mystery bird, bird ID quiz
[Mystery bird] African Jacana, Actophilornis africanus, endemic to marshes and reedbeds across eastern and southern Africa from Ethiopia to South Africa. [I will identify this bird for you tomorrow]
Image:GrrlScientist, 2 September 2008 [larger view].
Please name at least one field mark that supports your identification.
Rick Wright, Managing Director of WINGS Birding Tours Worldwide, writes:
The jacanas are a small group of strange rail-like shorebirds of tropical marshes. Though the different species are…
grrlscientist | January 6, 2009tags: Lapland Longspur, Calcarius lapponicus, birds, mystery bird, bird ID quiz
[Mystery bird] Lapland Longspur, Calcarius lapponicus, photographed at the Montlake Fill, Seattle, King County, Washington State. [I will identify this bird for you tomorrow]
Image: Marv Breece, 8 October 2007 [larger view].
Canon EOS 350D 1/1250s f/6.3 at 300.0mm iso800.
Please name at least one field mark that supports your identification.
Review all mystery birds to date.
grrlscientist | January 5, 2009tags: Birds in the News, BirdNews, ornithology, birds, avian, newsletter
Rainbow Lory, Trichoglossus haematodus moluccanus. This subspecies of rainbow lory is also found in Australia, along the east coast.
Image: John Del Rio. [larger view].
Birds in Science
One of the most contentious issues among scientists who study the evolution of birds is identifying precisely when the modern birds (Neornithes) first appeared. This is due to conflicts between the fossil record and molecular dating methodologies. For example, fossils support a Tertiary radiation whereas molecular dating methodologies…
grrlscientist | January 5, 2009tags: Dickcissel, Spiza americana, birds, mystery bird, bird ID quiz
[Mystery bird] Dickcissel, Spiza americana, photographed at Eisenhower Park, Houston, Texas. [I will identify this bird for you tomorrow]
Image: Joseph Kennedy, 17 July 2007 [larger view].
Nikon D200, Kowa 883 telescope TSN-PZ camera eyepiece 1/1000s f/8.0 at 500.0mm iso400.
Please name at least one field mark that supports your identification.
Rick Wright, Managing Director of WINGS Birding Tours Worldwide, writes:
A well-proportioned and colorful bird, proclaiming his territory from a bare twig. I can almost hear him…
tetrapodzoology | January 4, 2009Extant sulids - the gannets and boobies - are admittedly pretty uniform (greater diversity existed among fossil forms, as we'll see at some stage), but they still differ in many subtle ways. In the previous sulid post we looked at the gannets: we now turn to the boobies [composite image shown here features Blue-footed booby at top left, Brown booby at bottom left, and Nazca booby at right. All pics from wikipedia].
If you're here because you hadn't realised that 'boobies' was being used in the ornithological sense, sorry. On that subject - everyone knows why the birds are called 'boobies'.…
grrlscientist | January 4, 2009tags: Turkey Vulture, Cathartes aura, birds, mystery bird, bird ID quiz
[Mystery birds] Turkey Vulture, Cathartes aura, photographed the Quintana Beach and Jetty area, Texas. [I will identify this bird for you tomorrow]
Image: Joseph Kennedy, 18 November 2008 [larger view].
Nikon D200 1/250s f/8.0 at 1000.0mm iso400.
Please name at least one field mark that supports your identification.
Rick Wright, Managing Director of WINGS Birding Tours Worldwide, writes:
Compare this fine Turkey Vulture with the Black Vulture in an earlier quiz. Sure, the head color gives it away, but notice that…
grrlscientist | January 3, 2009tags: Evening Grosbeak, Coccothraustes vespertinus, birds, mystery bird, bird ID quiz
[Mystery bird] Evening Grosbeak, Coccothraustes vespertinus, photographed in Skagit County, Washington State. [I will identify this bird for you tomorrow]
Image: Marv Breece, 25 June 2005 [larger view].
Nikon Coolpix 4300 1/20s f/4.9 iso100.
Please name at least one field mark that supports your identification.
Review all mystery birds to date.
grrlscientist | January 2, 2009tags: mystery bird, identify this bird, birds, mystery bird, bird ID quiz
[Mystery birds]Caspian Tern, Sterna caspia, in a spectacular dive, photographed the Quintana Beach and Jetty area, Texas. [I will identify this bird for you tomorrow]
Image: Joseph Kennedy, 18 November 2008 [larger view].
Nikon D200 1/3000s f/8.0 at 1000.0mm iso400.
Please name at least one field mark that supports your identification.
Rick Wright, Managing Director of WINGS Birding Tours Worldwide, writes:
This is a spectacular photo of a large seabird behaving spectacularly. The focus of that perpendicular dive…
tetrapodzoology | January 1, 2009Oh crap, it's 2009 already (one of my favourite lines from movies is: "They say time is the fire in which we burn". Quiz: where is it from?). Happy New Year! For no reason at all - other than that I'm reading a lot about seabirds at the moment - here is a neat photo of several Black-headed gulls Chroicocephalus ridibundus, taken by my good friend Tina Whitlock.
Chroicocephalus ridibundus is of course the bird that you probably know better as Larus ridibundus: if you missed the big bun-fight (reference) we had here at Tet Zoo about gull taxonomy - and indeed about taxonomy in general - go see…
grrlscientist | January 1, 2009tags: Say's Phoebe, Sayornis saya, birds, mystery bird, bird ID quiz
[Mystery bird] Say's Phoebe, Sayornis saya, photographed in Arizona. [I will identify this bird for you tomorrow]
Image: Richard Ditch, 2006 [larger view].
Date Time Original: 2006:12:27 13:35:48
Exposure Time: 1/319
F-Number: 8.00
ISO: 200
Please name at least one field mark that supports your identification.
Rick Wright, Managing Director of WINGS Birding Tours Worldwide, writes:
What a sweet, gentle little bird, perched alertly on a sunflower: attitude and habitat tell us we're looking at one of the open-country…
grrlscientist | December 31, 2008tags: Savannah Sparrow, Passerculus sandwichensis, birds, mystery bird, bird ID quiz
[Mystery bird] Savannah Sparrow, Passerculus sandwichensis, photographed in Snohomish County, Washington State. [I will identify this bird for you tomorrow]
Image: Marv Breece, 19 April 2007 [larger view].
Canon EOS 350D 1/2000s f/6.3 at 270.0mm iso400.
Please name at least one field mark that supports your identification.
Review all mystery birds to date.
tetrapodzoology | December 31, 2008Seabirds are undeniably cool. They often look neat, they often have very cool names (witness such examples as Macronectes, Oceanodroma and Cerorhinca), and their biology is often amazing. They include some of the largest and longest-lived of birds, the most numerous (there might be over 50 million Wilson's storm-petrels Oceanites oceanicus in the world), and the most wide-ranging. While crossing the English Channel recently, I kept a look out above-deck for, well, whatever.
And I was rewarded with excellent views of Northern gannet Morus bassanus [adjacent pic from wikipedia]. Together with…
grrlscientist | December 30, 2008tags: Lincoln's Sparrow, Melospiza lincolnii, birds, mystery bird, bird ID quiz
[Mystery bird] Lincoln's Sparrow, Melospiza lincolnii, photographed in Manhattan, Kansas. [I will identify this bird for you tomorrow]
Image: Dave Rintoul, 25 October 2008 [larger view].
Please name at least one field mark that supports your identification.
Review all mystery birds to date.
grrlscientist | December 29, 2008tags: Wren, Winter Wren, Troglodytes troglodytes, birds, mystery bird, bird ID quiz
[Mystery bird] Wren (known as the "Winter Wren" in the United States), Troglodytes troglodytes, photographed near the Bridge of Orchy, Scotland. [I will identify this bird for you tomorrow]
Image: Dave Rintoul, Summer 2008. [larger view].
Please name at least one field mark that supports your identification.
Rick Wright, Managing Director of WINGS Birding Tours Worldwide, writes:
A tiny bird with a thin bill and a cocked tail, dark brown with a big supercilium and a bit of barring on the flank: it can…
grrlscientist | December 28, 2008tags: Brown Pelican, Pelecanus occidentalis, birds, mystery bird, bird ID quiz
[Mystery birds] Brown Pelican, Pelecanus occidentalis, in a spectacular dive, photographed the Quintana Beach and Jetty area, Texas. [I will identify this bird for you tomorrow]
Image: Joseph Kennedy, 18 November 2008 [larger view].
Nikon D200 1/2500s f/8.0 at 1000.0mm iso400.
Please name at least one field mark that supports your identification.
Rick Wright, Managing Director of WINGS Birding Tours Worldwide, writes:
This is a great photo of a Brown Pelican doing what it does best: diving, in a twisting,…
grrlscientist | December 26, 2008tags: Female Ring-necked Duck, Aythya collaris, birds, mystery bird, bird ID quiz
[Mystery birds] Female Ring-necked Duck, Aythya collaris, photographed in Hermann Park, Texas. [I will identify this bird for you tomorrow]
Image: Joseph Kennedy, 16 November 2008 [larger view].
Nikon D200 Kowa 883 telescope with TSN-PZ camera eyepiece 1/350s f/1.0 iso400.
Please name at least one field mark that supports your identification.
Rick Wright, Managing Director of WINGS Birding Tours Worldwide, writes:
A brown duck. A useful first step is to narrow the choices to divers and dabblers; since we…