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Licking Clay: the Macaws of Tambopata, Peru

10,000 Birds

UNLESS that is you get yourself down to the internationally-renowned Tambopata Research Centre in southern Peru where literally hundreds of macaws (and other parrots) congregate around a 50 meter high clay bank. The clay consumed at the colpa contains chemicals that bind with these ingested alkaloids thus neutralizing their toxicity.

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The Feathery Tribe: A Book Review

10,000 Birds

The team explored Nevada and Utah, with Ridgway collecting thousands of bird specimen, plus nests and eggs for the Smithsonian. This is probably one of the reasons Daniel Lewis,the author,turned from writing a popular biography to a history of ornithology as a science and the ornithologist as a profession. It’s challenging reading.

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A Problem with Gulls

10,000 Birds

It was very touching to read a comment from Mayr to a more non-scientific article by Liebers & Helbig in a German birdwatching magazine about the Herring Gull not being a ring species, where Mayr applauded them and was happy not only over but beyond the moon about the research. The proposal from U.S.

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ACTION ALERT! Tomorrow, MARCH 15, 2011, is the deadline for public.

10,000 Birds

For my new book, due out in 2012 from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, I’ve been researching sandhill crane hunting. A Great Backyard Bird Count Miracle Best Bird of the Weekend (Last of January 2011) What is the International Bird Rescue Research Center Anyway? Or These Blasts From The Past What’s In A Name? The proposal from U.S.

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Some Chinese Pheasants

10,000 Birds

This turned out to be nice for one researcher who thus could do the research for her Ph.D. Interestingly, in her work, the researcher found that the birds live in small groups dominated by a single male. A bit surprisingly (at least to me), the Kalij Pheasant has been introduced and established as a gamebird in Hawaii.