Living the Scientific Life (Scientist, Interrupted): Early Birds Shake Up Avian Tree of Life
via Pharyngula/Tangled Bank, exciting parrot/falcon/songbird news! 'This analysis effectively redraws avian phylogeny, or family tree, thus shaking up our current understanding of the early, or "deep", evolutionary relationships of birds.'
(del.icio.us tags: phylogeny birds evolution taxonomy )
Posts tagged with ‘birds’
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Links
26 July 2008 – 11:00 pm
Links
5 July 2008 – 11:01 pm
Birds from Brazilian Atlantic Forest, Ustream.TV: Birds from Brazilian Atlantic Forest - Live feed
video feed of tanagers and suchlike at a Brazilian birdtable.
(del.icio.us tags: birds video )
Wales photos
26 May 2008 – 3:35 pm
I’ve uploaded a set of photos from Welsh trip to Flickr. Here’s one of them, a singing whitethroat:
I somewhat felt the lack of a wide-angle lens, with all that scenery all over the place, and I’ve held back some of the best ones for my photoblog Clouded Drab (there’s a couple already posted), but I hope you can find some [...]
I’m in Wales
16 May 2008 – 2:36 pm
In a cafe in St David’s to be exact. I spent the last couple of days in the southern part of Pembrokeshire, in a village called Marloes; it’s the kind of place which, in England, would be one street, one pub, one shop and one church; being Wales, it has a pub, a shop, a [...]
Links
2 May 2008 – 2:15 pm
Amoebas may vomit E. coli on your greens - New Scientist
‘A laboratory study has found that food pathogens survive being eaten by protozoa living on spinach and lettuce. The temporary asylum might help bacteria stick onto leafy greens or resist efforts to kill them before packaging.’
(del.icio.us tags: amoebae bacteria )
Ancient bird is missing link to [...]
Napowrimo #30: Advice for mice
30 April 2008 – 9:56 pm
Advice
for mice.
If Lanius excubitor
(the Great Grey Shrike)
should happen to impale you on
a big sharp spike,
it’s really nothing personal:
it just intends to rip
some chunks of flesh from off your bones
and needs a better grip.
They call the shrike the butcher bird
and butchery is harder
if you do it without any knives
and a thornbush for a larder.
Napowrimo #23: Lapwings
23 April 2008 – 9:40 pm
Because it’s Shakespeare’s birthday (probably), a poem inspired by a Shakespeherian bird reference:
Lapwings
Now begin;
For look where Beatrice, like a lapwing, runs
Close by the ground, to hear our conference.
Much Ado About Nothing, 3.ii.23-5
The winter flocks of round-winged lapwings
with their creaking, bubbling song
are sharing all the gossip gained
all summer long.
They spend the summer slyly lurking
in the tangled tussock-grass
and listening to [...]
Napowrimo #19: the cinnamon owl
19 April 2008 – 11:05 pm
Birdwatchers know
the Cinnamon Owl
by its tempting aroma
and blood-chilling howl.
Indeed, with the owl
and the Aniseed Swan
the scent often lingers
after they’ve gone.
Napowrimo #16: double dactyl
16 April 2008 – 7:54 pm
Halcyon-dalcyon
Littoral Kingfishers
hover by seashores on
flashing blue wings.
Monarchs beware of their
literal-mindedness;
given the choice they’d be
fishing for kings.
Napowrimo #14: The mason bird
14 April 2008 – 10:56 pm
The remarkable nest of the weaver bird
is passably well known;
less famous is the mason bird
which carves a nest from stone.
The proportions can be clumsy;
there’s a tendency to schlock,
a rather Disney mixture
of the Gothic and Baroque;
some ornamental flourishes
are let down by poor technique.
But not bad for a bird holding
a chisel in its beak.
~~~~
[I did write one [...]
Napowrimo #7: The Flightless Falcon
7 April 2008 – 9:07 pm
On oceanic islands
under endless sky
many birds evolve without
the ability to fly.
The Inaccessible Island Rail,
the Stephens Island Wren,
the Réunion Sacred Ibis
and St Helena Swamphen:
all flightless; nearly all extinct;
but none were stranger than
the Flightless Falcon that once lived
on an island near Japan.
It was a ruthless hunter,
and would perch upon a rock
until below there waddled past
a Flightless Pigeon [...]
Important news bulletin
15 March 2008 – 8:21 pm
I heard an owl last night.
» Engraving by Thomas Bewick from the Bewick Society website.
RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch 2008
26 January 2008 – 12:28 pm
It’s that time of year again. I haven’t been looking forward to it particularly because it has just been a rubbish year for birds in the garden. I don’t know why. I’m not sure we’ve ever had quite as many birds since we moved all the feeders onto a pole in open space nearer the [...]
Night owls
16 January 2008 – 2:29 pm
I dreamt last night that owls had started coming to the bird feeders.
Bird of the Year 2007
31 December 2007 – 3:59 pm
It’s that time again. Last year when I did this, I’d been birding in Spain in the spring and then the Galapagos and Ecuador in the autumn. This year has been less dramatic—no albatrosses or toucans—but I did see some great stuff in Crete in April.
First, though, some local stuff. There have been Little Grebes [...]
Redwings
20 December 2007 – 3:26 pm
There’s a berry-covered tree over the road from the house—some kind of cotoneaster?—and at the moment there’s an almost constant stream of redwings going back and forth from it.
The redwing is a smallish thrush with a marked white eyebrow stripe and a brick-red underwing. I’m always pleased to see them, not least because they’re one [...]
Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition
1 December 2007 – 11:23 am
I went to the Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition at the Natural History Museum yesterday, which is always worth a look.
Apart from the fact that there are loads of great photos, there’s the fun of deciding whether the judges have made the right decisions. I’m always a bit disappointed when they choose a portrait [...]
Parakeets
4 November 2007 – 6:19 pm
Not a very good picture, not least because they’re all camouflaged, but look at all the ring-necked parakeets in the garden:
I think there are ten in the picture, though some of them are rather hidden. Attractive birds, even if they are noisy little buggers.
Apologies for infrequent posting
8 October 2007 – 12:31 pm
I’m working up to writing a long post about the book I just finished, but in the meantime, here’s a quietly hypnotic video of someone hand-feeding hummingbirds: