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Feather Trails: A Journey of Discovery Among Endangered Birds–A Book Review

10,000 Birds

Osborn, a passionate field biologist who participates to the core of her being three re-introduction projects aimed at saving three very different, endangered species: Peregrine Falcon, Hawaiian Crow (‘Alala)*, and California Condor. She crafts her prose with a visual immediacy that bring you directly into her experience.

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Some Ingenuity Can Go a Long Way

10,000 Birds

The use of tool by animals is surprisingly rare. I find fascinating the fact that Egyptian Vultures , New Caledonian Crows and Woodpecker Finches learned to use a tool with tremendous success. This is similar to the fact that all birds, even first time breeders within a species build identical nests. The behavior was inherent.

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Better Birding: A Book Review (& a New Year’s goal)

10,000 Birds

And so, I turn to Better Birding: Tips, Tools & Concepts for the Field , the new book by George L. It is an intriguing choice of species. These are extremely detailed, covering distribution, behavior, and plumage by age and gender (when relevant) and comparisons with other species in and external to the group.

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How to Know the Birds: The Art and Adventure of Birding – A Book Review

10,000 Birds

So, for example, Essay #15, “Individual Variation,” uses Herring Gulls to introduce the concept that one species, even one species at a specific age, can vary widely in appearance. The Checklist is more than a taxonomic listing of species and chapter number and title; it also contains useful notes on each bird family.

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Far From Land: The Mysterious Lives of Seabirds–A Book Review

10,000 Birds

It’s not often that we have the opportunity to glimpse the home life of albatrosses, nor of any seabird species. We didn’t know much about migration routes, foraging away from the breeding colony, and feeding during migration, in the water and in the air. Technology to the rescue! So, what did I learn from Far From Land ?

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It’s time for a new understanding of tanagers

10,000 Birds

Most of these birds are small, finch-like species with thick, conical bills for cracking seeds or eating insects. Iconic and amazing Galápagos finches, some of which even learned how to use tools. ” For these reasons, it is perhaps no surprise that bird bills have played a prominent role in their classification. (PDF:

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Bird Banding the Dry Tortugas

10,000 Birds

The park is home to not one, not two, but large three colonies of breeding seabirds: the Brown Noddy , Magnificent Frigatebird , and Sooty Tern. No, that was not a typo, the Sooty Terns fly non-stop for an average of five years before they return to the Dry Tortugas to breed. Lots and lots of birds. Each took merely a minute or two.

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