Early last July, Stacia Novy, a young military career woman, biologist, and falconer, e-mailed me an excited message that she had just been instrumental in finding the nest of a very little known Neotropical raptor, the Solitary Eagle (Buteogallus solitarius), in Belize. She attached this picture. Unfortunately, since then, most published accounts have omitted her …
Tag: Biology
Old Bird
Last week, Anne Price of the REF e- mailed to tell me that her Harris tiercel Indiana Jones had died, very much of old age and attendant frailties. Anne: “This morning I said goodbye Indiana Jones, a.k.a. Indi, my Harris Hawk. I would be lying if I said I weren’t sad, but he was kind …
Flock Flight
I never tire of watching the great winter flocks of birds like starlings, moving with eerie grace like some superorganism, supposedly by obeying very simple rules. (Photo, sent anonymously a year or two ago, by Manuel Presti; thanks, PD!) This is most obvious when birds are under attack.Bill Kessler sent this amazing YouTube filmed in …
Almost a review
Libby recently read Jeff Lockwood’s Locust. Her letter to him is as good as a short review, and the last line could be a blurb: “I thoroughly enjoyed Locust. My favorite period of US history is the opening of the west during the 1800’s. When I was a kid we took many family trips to …
Two Skulls
Suburban Bushwhacker posted some photos of a skull that he wanted his readers to guess at. It was a European badger. I know because long ago, after were were unable to stop in what the English call a “roundabout”* to retrieve a carcass, zoologist- artist Jonathan Kingdon gave me a skull of one with the …
Two quick links
Tim Gallagher just sent this link to a new study of passenger pigeon genetics.It is NOT a big mourning dove, and is closer despite its long tail to New World Columba like the bandtail. This might give more weight to some of my speculations in A Feathered Tempest (developed more succinctly in my recent Living …
Bird Nerd Review Post
Heavy (bird) science warning! John Burchard asked me recently about the current evolutionary status of New World Vultures, and I realized my answer “reviewed” a book I had been meaning to. So consider the following to be my semi- official review of the amazing book The Inner Bird by Gary Kaiser. The very latest– this …
More Thoughts on Prof. McMahan’s Essay
Reading yesterday’s NYT (online) essay, The Meat Eaters, by Rutgers University professor of philosophy Jeff McMahan (forwarded by reader Daniela and shared below by Steve), I’m almost more puzzled by my own need to comment on the piece than I am amazed by it. It’s tempting to lump this man’s essay in with the tiresome mass of …
A Little Science
Almost old news now, but Ardipithecus is likely to be important– she is so old (4 million years plus) and a forest creature, so we have to rethink bipedality. It isn’t for running on the plains, looking over the grass etc. And we are not as close to chimps as we thought– the split goes …
Vaguely Biological Links
An “extinct” bird is rediscovered– and eaten. Apparently black north American wolves owe their color to interbreeding with dogs that crossed the Bering bridge HT Laura Niven and Reid. SmartDogs sent a link to a new method of detecting rabies. It sounded good, but Patrick found reason to dispute their claims. Also at Terrierman: a …