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How Birds Evolve: What Science Reveals about Their Origin, Lives, and Diversity: A Book Review by a Non-Science Person

10,000 Birds

Doug Futuyma believes in science and in the scientific basis of evolution. How Birds Evolve: What Science Reveals about Their Origin, Lives, and Diversity by Douglas J. This isn’t a bad thing, it’s just a very different kind of book than popular books about bird behavior, which rely on story as much as science.

Science 213
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The Most Perfect Thing: Inside (and Outside) a Bird’s Egg

10,000 Birds

Tim Birkhead, a respected ornithologist with years of research under his belt, doesn’t quite achieve perfection with this book on the totality of that strange entity, the bird’s egg, but he makes a valiant effort of it and comes away with a very interesting book indeed.

Eggs 100
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Sand Trap: Netting Red Knots for Science

10,000 Birds

If you need to capture a bird for study or rehabbing, there are a number of tools at your disposal. One scientists posits that harvesting of horseshoe crabs (their eggs are a preferred Red Knot food source) at a crucial refueling stop on the birds’ migration could be part of the problem. Mist nets are a popular strategy.

Science 163
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Some thoughts on scientific collecting

10,000 Birds

If you want to know why most scientists support collecting this piece in Science explains it better than I can. I can understand why some people are conflicted, but the value to science of the collections is immense. Box after box of egg. I’m not going to rehash the arguments for scientific collecting here.

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

10,000 Birds

49-50) She is also adept at writing about conservation’s larger context in terms of its history, public policy struggles, and the science behind species re-introduction. Well-researched and footnoted, these sections never feel disconnected from the more personal sections. Author Sophie A. Osborn, photo by Lisa Koitzsch, © Sophie A.

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National Audubon Society Birds of North America: A Guide Review

10,000 Birds

The photographs are from VIREO, the ornithological image collection associated with the Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University, which licenses bird photographs to many guides and reference books. Using the icons to locate specific bird families takes a little getting used to, but if you do it often it works well as a finding tool.

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Why Do Penguins Wear Tuxedos?

10,000 Birds

They have special adaptations to stay warm and to keep their eggs and chicks warm. However, we now know that human ancestors became upright first, and were bipedal for millions of years before they started to use tools extensively, and then another million years went by before their brains started to evolve a significantly larger size.

Penguins 191