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Killdeer from Egg to Adult

10,000 Birds

It breeds across much of North America, is present year-round in the Caribbean, northern Central America, and the west coast of northern South America, and in winter is found across the rest of Central America. They are cosmopolitan, nesting even in urban areas, but also in golf courses and parking lots.

Eggs 179
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Feral Cats Are An Invasive Species in North America (and elsewhere)

10,000 Birds

It was not a kitty cat, even though all of its relatives in the Americas were. But they don’t live in North America. I find it astonishing that people argue of whether feral cats are bad for birds in North America. In North America, you’ve got Bears at the large end, Cats in the middle, and at the smaller end, the Mustilids.

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The Complicated Mating Systems of Rheas

10,000 Birds

Male Phalaropes, Jacanas, Tinamous, and Rheas build nests, incubate the eggs and take care of the chicks. Perhaps the most complicated and bizarre mating system is that of the Rheas of South America. They live in flocks in the open country shrubland of Southern South America. Some of the eggs will be lost to the elements.

Eggs 154
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Into the Nest: A Book Review in the Time of Nesting

10,000 Birds

Second, reading about birds courting and parenting brings out the tendency to identify, which leads directly to anthropomorphism, the tendency to assign birds human emotions and thoughts. Think of birds too much as humans and you lose the specialness that makes them birds. And of eggs and nests and birds on nests. But special.

Eggs 263
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Birds and Us: A 12,000 Year History from Cave Art to Conservation–A Book Review

10,000 Birds

They may be about bird eggs ( The Most Perfect Thing: The Inside (and Outside) of a Bird’s Egg , 2016), or a 17th-century ornithologist ( Virtuoso by Nature: The Scientific Worlds of Francis Willughby, 2016), or How Bullfinches learn songs from humans ( The Wisdom of Birds: An Illustrated History of Ornithology.

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Baby Bird Identification: A North American Guide–A Book Review

10,000 Birds

Baby birds are cuteness personified, possibly even more so than other baby animals, including human babies, and pose interesting questions of survival and development. Baby birds may be separated from the nest and their parents because of natural occurrences (violent weather, floods) or unknowing human interference or predators.

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Bird Talk: An Exploration of Avian Communication–A Book Review

10,000 Birds

” And then I found out that bird song doesn’t just belong to the males, that there are female birds who sing too, only not so much in North America, and my mind was blown.**. They’re just like us–they talk with their hands (er, wings) and their feet and some are even crafty!” There is so much here!