ornithology
grrlscientist | July 14, 2008tags: Killdeer, Charadrius vociferus, birds, nature, Image of the Day
Killdeer chick, Charadrius vociferus, running.
Image: Joseph Kennedy, 27 April 2006 [larger view].
Nikon D200 1/400s f/8.0 at 500.0mm iso400.
grrlscientist | July 14, 2008tags: Birds in the News, BirdNews, ornithology, birds, avian, newsletter
Juvenile male Blue-throated Hummingbird, Lampornis clemenciae, Cave Creek Canyon, AZ.
Image: Dave Rintoul, June 2008 [larger view].
For comparison, an adult male of the species -- also read the comments section to learn more about how to identify juvenile males of this species.
Birds in Science News
A new analysis indicates that birds don't fly alone when migrating at night. Some birds, at least, keep together on their migratory journeys, flying in tandem even when they are 200 meters or more apart. The study, from…
tetrapodzoology | July 13, 2008
It's going to be a busy week, and already I've been totally unable to finish any of the planned articles. But I'll do what I can. In an effort to produce something short and sweet, here's a look at a question I've been pondering for a while: why do some owls have ear tufts? There are currently round about 225 living owl species, and of those about 50 have what we commonly call ear tufts. As with so many structures present in animals, we have little idea as to what these are for, and little hypothesis testing has been done. However, several very interesting hypotheses exist...
My favourite…
grrlscientist | July 13, 2008tags: Black-necked Stilt, Himantopus mexicanus, birds, nature, Image of the Day
Black-necked Stilt chick, Himantopus mexicanus, at Bolivar Peninsula, Texas.
Image: Joseph Kennedy, 24 May 2007 [larger view].
Nikon D200 1/1000s f/1.0 at 1000.0mm iso400.
grrlscientist | July 11, 2008tags: researchblogging.org, birdsong, personality traits, mate choice, sexual selection, risk taking, European collared flycatcher, Ficedula albicollis, László Zsolt Garamszegi
Male European collared flycatcher, Ficedula albicollis, singing.
Image: Beijershamn Ãland, 23 May 2004 [link].
Canon EOS 300D Digital Rebel 1/1000s f/8.0 at 400.0mm iso400.
Most people don't believe that animals possess distinct personalities, although they readily recognize and can describe individual personalities among their family, friends and neighbors and are aware of the importance of individual…
grrlscientist | July 11, 2008tags: researchblogging.org, reciprocal altruism, cooperation, anti-predator behavior, mobbing, birds, pied flycatcher, Ficedula hypoleuca, Indrikis Krams
Male European pied flycatcher, Ficedula hypoleuca, singing.
Skåne, Sweden.
Image: Omar Brännström, 8 May 2005 [link].
Canon EOS 1D Mark II ,Canon EF 500mm f/4L IS USM 1/640s f/5.6 at 700.0mm iso320.
Meticulous experimental design is crucial to understanding the evolution of specific behaviors, expecially complex and subtle behaviors exhibited by highly intelligent and very social animals, such as birds. One such behavior is mobbing…
grrlscientist | July 7, 2008tags: Birds in the News, BirdNews, ornithology, birds, avian, newsletter
Canyon Towhee, Pipilo fuscus, in Chaco Canyon.
Image: Dave Rintoul, June 2008 [larger view].
News of Birds in Science
According to an article that was just published in the journal BioScience, penguin populations are declining sharply due to the combined effects of overfishing and pollution from offshore oil operations and shipping. Dee Boersma, professor of biology and the Wadsworth Endowed Chair in Conservation Science at the University of Washington in Seattle, reports that Patagonian (magellanic) penguins,…
tetrapodzoology | July 6, 2008
You blog readers are so fickle. Write several thousand words on a spectacular group of carnivorous mammals that have never previously been the subject of any sort of semi-popular review, and get bugger all attention. Write about 50 words and post two pictures, and - hey - the whole world goes nuts. Anyway, thanks to everyone who had a guess on the 'mystery' fossil. Some of you were pretty close to the mark, but evidently no-one who commented has checked Naish et al. (2007), the bird chapter of Martill et al.'s CUP volume The Crato Fossil Beds of Brazil (previously discussed in this article…
grrlscientist | July 2, 2008tags: researchblogging.org, global warming, climate variation, climate change, penguins, El Nino, marine zoning, P. Dee Boersma
Adélie penguins, Pygoscelis adeliae, and chicks.
(a) Adélie penguin chicks may get covered in snow during storms, but beneath the snow their down is warm and dry. (b) When rain falls, downy Adélie chicks can get wet and, when soaked, can become hypothermic and die.
Images: P. Dee Boersma.
According to an article that was just published in the journal BioScience, penguin populations are declining sharply due to the combined effects of overfishing and pollution…
grrlscientist | June 30, 2008tags: Birds in the News, BirdNews, ornithology, birds, avian, newsletter
Ruby-crowned Kinglet, Regulus calendula, with insect egg or pupa in its beak.
Image: Dave Rintoul, KSU [larger view].
News of Birds in Science
A fascinating paper was just published by some of my colleagues in the top-tier journal, Science, that analyzes the largest collection of DNA data ever assembled for birds. This analysis effectively redraws avian phylogeny, or family tree, thus shaking up our current understanding of the early, or "deep", evolutionary relationships of birds. For example, one of the most…
grrlscientist | June 29, 2008tags: Return To Warden's Grove, ornithology, birds, field research, biology dissertation, Christopher Norment, book review
Throughout my life, certain people have had the audacity to lecture me about how a scientific education and a scientific life forever destroys a person's ability to appreciate nature. I always tell them how science enhances my appreciation and .. dare I say it? .. my love of the natural world, but I sometimes think no one hears me. But thanks to the wonderful book, Return To Warden's Grove: Science, Desire, and the Lives of Sparrows by Chris Norment (Iowa City: University…
grrlscientist | June 26, 2008tags: researchblogging.org, Early Bird Project, Tree of Life, avian evolution, deep avian evolutionary relationships, avian phylogenomics, location cues, Shannon J. Hackett, Rebecca T. Kimball, Sushma Reddy
Basic topology of the evolutionary relationships between birds.
Maximum Likelihood (ML) phylogram reveals the short internodes at the base of Neoaves and highlights certain extreme examples of rate variation across avian lineages. The phylogenetic tree was rooted to crocodilian outgroups (not shown). Branch colors represent major clades supported in this study: land birds (green),…
grrlscientist | June 24, 2008tags: researchblogging.org, Black-throated Blue Warbler, Dendroica caerulescens, social information, habitat selection, vegetation structure, location cues, dispersal, Matthew G Betts
Male Black-throated Blue Warbler, Dendroica caerulescens, with nestlings.
Image: S. Maslowski, USFWS [larger view].
Wild songbirds must be able to quickly discriminate between different habitats so they can choose and establish a suitable breeding territory. Since even older, experienced breeding songbirds lose roughly 50% of their chicks to predators, even a small mistake in choosing a breeding territory…
grrlscientist | June 23, 2008tags: Birds in the News, BirdNews, ornithology, birds, avian, newsletter
Yellow-rumped warbler, Dendroica coronata, After Hatch Year male.
Image: Dave Rintoul, KSU [larger view].
People Hurting Birds
The National Council of SPCAs (NSPCA) in South Africa said it was out of options trying to prevent a bird hunt organised by the High School Hans Strijdom in Mookgophong (Naboomspruit). The school apparently organised a bird hunt to take place over the weekend to raise funds, but the NSPCA condemned it as unethical. "The linking of a school with flagrant slaughter, turning killing into sport…
tetrapodzoology | June 18, 2008
As if the revelations about Brontornis and all that new work on the ameghinornithids weren't enough, 2007 also saw the publication of a long-awaited new study on the age of Titanis walleri, North America's only phorusrhacid, and - supposedly - a species that survived until as recently as 15,000 years ago. Yes, it's time to crack on with more terror birds, or phorusrhacids. It's a story of ancient island-hopping, of the proposed re-evolution of clawed forelimbs, and of Raven, the giant claw-handed bird of Native American folklore...
Titanis walleri Brodkorb, 1963 is one of the largest and…
grrlscientist | June 18, 2008tags: Black-chinned Hummingbird, Archilochus alexandri, birds, nature, Image of the Day
Female black-chinned Hummingbird, Archilochus alexandri, Cave Creek Canyon, AZ.
Image: Dave Rintoul, June 2008 [larger view].
More images from Dave's recent Arizona vacation.
grrlscientist | June 17, 2008tags: evolution, beak and body size, Geospiza fortis, inbreeding, mating patterns, reproductive isolation, sexual imprinting
A family tree depicts the evolution of the 14 species of "Darwin's finches".
(The focus of this study, the Medium Ground Finch, Geospiza fortis, is denoted with a red dot).
[larger image].
I have always been fascinated by the process of speciation throughout my scientific career because speciation is the "engine" that generates biological diversity. But what are the evolutionary mechanisms that lead to speciation? We know that mate choice can be one important…
grrlscientist | June 16, 2008tags: Birds in the News, BirdNews, ornithology, birds, avian, newsletter
"Blue enough for ya?"
Male Eastern Bluebird, Sialia sialis.
Image: Dave Rintoul, KSU [larger view].
Birds and Dads News
I stop for pileated woodpeckers. That'd be my life's bumper sticker. These days, I know my birds. Not because I ever saw them as a kid, but because on the way home from hikes with my dad, I'd grab his Golden field guide, Birds of North America, and read up on what we just spent the whole day not seeing. Pileated, by the way, means capped, a reference to its distinctive triangular red crest. Woody…
tetrapodzoology | June 13, 2008
You'll recall me saying recently that 2007 was a good year for publications on phorusrhacids, aka terror birds. And as I discussed in the previous post, one of the most interesting contentions made about phorusrhacids last year was that one of the most remarkable members of the group (super-robust Brontornis from the Miocene) is actually not a phorusrhacid at all. Here we look at recent work on a group of birds that, while initially suggested to be part of the phorusrhacid radiation, now, also, seem not to be. They are the ameghinornithids...
Originally named as a phorusrhacid 'subfamily'…
grrlscientist | June 11, 2008tags: Rock Wren, Salpinctes obsoletus, birds, nature, Image of the Day
My good friend, Dave Rintoul, has just returned from a much-deserved vacation camping in the Chiricahuas and Gila Wilderness area and sent a couple images to share with you.
Rock Wren, Salpinctes obsoletus, in Chaco Canyon.
Image: Dave Rintoul, June 2008 [larger view].