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Songbird-parrot link strengthened in new study, with implications for vocal learning

10,000 Birds

Last month, I wrote about hypothesized relationships between passerines, parrots, falcons, and seriemas , noting a need for further research on the subject. The post stimulated some great discussions but not really any additional commentary on the science behind these proposed relationships. Ringer Suh et al. Ringer Suh et al.

Parrots 213
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Rancho Naturalista Lodge, Costa Rica, or When Harry Met Mercedes

10,000 Birds

Quite a few mammals come out in the open to steal bananas left for the birds. Add Common Tody-Flycatcher and several Hoffmann’s Woodpeckers and Brown-hooded Parrots to that picture, among many others. Yet, with a coffee in one and binoculars in my other hand, the long ago learned lessons started to return.

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Rancho Naturalista Lodge, Costa Rica, or in the Land of Coffee and Chocolate

10,000 Birds

Into the souvenir shop for some local coffee, chocolate and cocoa, then a coffee mug with an image of a Three-toed Sloth and the Field Guide to the Mammals of Costa Rica, and off we go. Driving around the bamboo thickets on a small island in the lake, Mercedes spotted it! At least one Boat-billed Heron awaited us in the thickets.

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Penguins, Parrots and Wine on Matiu / Somes Island

10,000 Birds

As I have explained before these islands are the best place for a lot of the birding here because they are more easily protected from introduced mammals which wreck such havoc on the wildlife here. The whole place itself is an island, but the main islands are themselves the mainland to a number of smaller islands. I’ll work on that.

Penguins 165
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Great Tit Telomeres, Baby Talk, Brainy Birds

10,000 Birds

Third, which we already suspected, bird brains are adjusted to provide extra smartness in a way not seen in mammals. They used Great T**s from non-urban and urban areas, and mixed them up through breeding, to rule out any possible family history of telomere length. City Great Tit ( Parus major ) telomeres shortened.

Mammals 127
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City Hornbills

10,000 Birds

Hornbills are fantastic birds that have fascinated me since I was able to leaf through the big and lavishly drawn Birds, their Life, their Ways, Their World , that was one of my favorite non-dinosaur (or so I thought at the time) books of my childhood (the other was the twin set mammals of the world by National Geographic).

Singapore 194
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The Bird Way: A Book Review

10,000 Birds

Ackerman surrounds each individual story with background facts and studies on other birds who mimic, play, parasitize nests, engage in complex cognitive routines, parent in unusual ways–presenting a complex mosaic of avian behaviors amongst bird families and the scientific histories of trying to understand them.

Research 260