Feb 29 2012
At PoB we support efforts to protect the avian wildlife vigoriously. This post is dedicated to all participating in the EPIC program. This program resulted in the first breeding altas of the Lesser Antilles. On the website [http://www.epicislands.org/] all information about this major effort is compiled. Visit the site and, if nothing else, state your …
Feb 29 2012
A tantalizing but horrific video from youtube. In Amsterdam a band of Lions catch a Grey Heron. This video featured on the major news channels. Enjoy while you can, I didnt ask for permission to feature it on PoB but I could not resist showing it to you. original video by: Shirroy100
Feb 29 2012
This Green Heron shows some real learning behavior, it actually feeds bread to fish to catch it. The method succeeds, a true testimony to bird cognition. The most amazing is, it seems to be hungry but does not eat the bread like the surrounding Ibises do. I have never seen this kind of smart behavior …
Feb 29 2012
Starlings are one of the most numereous birds in the world and extremely gregarious. Outside the breeding season they gather in flocks of hundred of thousands of birds. This quality adds up to one of natures most spectacular views, Starlings flying in a flock. One of the reasons Sturnus vulgaris exhibits this behavior is to …
Mar 03 2012
Story After 35 years, a giant fossil penguin has finally been completely reconstructed, giving researchers new insights into prehistoric penguin diversity. The bones were collected in 1977 by Dr. Ewan Fordyce, a paleontologist from the University of Otago, New Zealand. In 2009 and 2011, Dr. Dan Ksepka, North Carolina State University research assistant professor of …
Mar 04 2012
Researchers from Madagascar and the United States have described a new species of forest-dwelling rail. The new bird was named Mentocrex beankaensis, with the genus Mentocrex being endemic to Madagascar and the new species beankaensis being coined after the type locality, the Beanka Forest in western central Madagascar. This species was distinguished from another in …
Mar 04 2012
For the first time in almost four decades, a new bird species has been discovered in the United States. But there’s a catch: the Bryan’s shearwater was identified in a museum collection. Though others have been reported, the first living bird-in-hand example awaits finding. On February 7, 2012, the DNA tests on 6 specimens found …
Mar 03 2012
Text by Audubon Introduction Kittlitz’s Murrelet is a small seabird found in the coastal regions of Alaska, where it feeds on fish and macro-zooplankton in areas where glaciers meet saltwater. It nests a few miles inland in the mountains and on cliff faces. Over recent decades, its local populations are estimated to have undergone precipitous …
Mar 03 2012
Text by Audubon Introduction The Golden-cheeked Warbler is a migratory songbird that breeds only in Ashe juniper woodlands. Between 1960 and 1980, the area of this habitat was reduced by development pressures in central Texas by about a quarter. In addition, anticipation that the warbler would be federally listed as an endangered species prompted landowners …
Mar 03 2012
Text by Audubon Introduction The Ashy Storm-Petrel is a seabird that nests in small rock cavities on islands off the coast of California. From 50 to 70 percent of the breeding population is located on Southeast Farallon Island in the Farallon National Wildlife Refuge and on California’s Channel Islands. With its already small population having …
Mar 03 2012
Text by Audubon Introduction The Florida Scrub-Jay lives only in Florida, in rare areas of oak scrub that must be renewed periodically by lightning-ignited fires. Seemingly inexorable development in the state has fragmented much of the scrub-jay’s habitat, minimizing the occurrence of fire. Unburnt, the oak scrub tends to become overgrown and evolve into sand …
Mar 03 2012
Text by Audubon Introduction The Piping Plover is a small shorebird that nests on beaches and sandflats along the Atlantic Coast, the Great Lakes, and large rivers and lakes in the Great Plains on the United States and Canada. Piping Plover nests are inconspicuous in the sand, and newly hatched chicks look like small sand-colored …
Mar 03 2012
Text by Audubon Introduction Kirtland’s Warbler is a small – they weigh only half-ounce each – migratory songbird that nests exclusively under trees in young jack pine forests in Michigan and sometimes Wisconsin and Ontario. Historically, this habitat is renewed when naturally occurring fires renew forests, with the heat from the fire forcing open the …
Mar 03 2012
Text by Audubon. Introduction The Gunnison Sage-Grouse, a chicken-sized ground bird, depends on sagebrush habitat for cover throughout the year and feeds exclusively on sagebrush during the winter. During the spring, summer, and fall, the grouse also browses on other plants and insects. Once native to New Mexico, northeastern Arizona, Colorado, and Utah, Gunnison Sage-Grouse …
Mar 03 2012
Text by Audubon Introduction The poignant irony of human engagement with endangered birds is captured in the image of a delicate open-cockpit ultralight aircraft that looks like one of Leonardo da Vinci’s flying machines guiding a flock of large, elegant white-andblack Whooping Cranes on their annual migration. Whooping Cranes once bred easily in the central …
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