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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 239
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Birding Tengchong, Yunnan (again)

10,000 Birds

Its scientific species name traillii is a rare example of a scientist not made up by me, namely Thomas Stewart Traill (1781-1862), a Scottish doctor. Apparently, the dark color of the plant nectar attracts the bird, as shown by controlled experiments. … Traill did this enough times that Shirley began to hide the scale.’

Nepal 186
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Our Favorite Bird Books (and one pair of Binoculars) of 2022

10,000 Birds

For example, many photos are shot in poor light, obscuring the true colours. Lees and Gilroy delineate vagrancy status and trends for every bird family worldwide, highlighting examples, synthesizing research, and framing it all with their own thoughts and conclusions.

Sri Lanka 253
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Vagrancy in Birds: A Book Review

10,000 Birds

Today’s vagrant could be tomorrow’s resident, a change that is visibly happening with, for example, the Clay-colored Thrush in southern Texas. As in the first part, the accounts are illustrated with many photographs, some of specific vagrant birds described in the text, some examples of species cited for their vagrant tendencies.

Birds 264
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The Bird Way: A Book Review

10,000 Birds

For one thing, we become more aware of cultural biases in our science (new findings on warbling female birds, for example, reveal both gender and geographic biases). Many popular science books have neither. As Ackerman explains in her Introduction, studying extreme behavior brings new insight into what we think we know.

Research 251
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Teaching Ornithology in High Schools

10,000 Birds

Manker’s thesis is that ornithology is an excellent gateway to students becoming science majors in college and, more broadly and longer-term, conservation-minded citizens. Examples here , here , and here.) That article left an impression and I have wondered what became of Manker’s effort to create a high school ornithology curriculum.

2018 264
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Some Hokkaido Winter Passerines

10,000 Birds

In science speak, this is named the optimal body mass hypothesis. For example , they were found to be better than human volunteers to see through magic tricks in which objects seemingly magically moved from one place to another.

Research 130