You are browsing the archives of 2007 January.

Tangled Bank #72, hosted quite ably at Ouroboros, can shed some light on that subject, as well as canger, aging, and the history of science, among other things.

to a new site. I think it looks better than ever!  If you don’t regularly visit this site, a group effort of some very observant members of the Nature Society (Singapore), I recommend it highly.

In my previous post , I described a moderately successful owl prowl, in that I did spot an owl or two, obscured though those views may have been. But I ended the account with a cliffhanger, alluding to an even better owl sighting later that day. If you read the title of this missive, you [...]

A couple of weeks ago, I complained about my rotten owl luck. Since this dismal situation was clearly not going to improve on its own, I chose to alter my dismal owl destiny by accompanying the Hudson River Audubon Society on an owl prowl at the scene of my most recent failure. Audubon chapters and [...]

Paul Milne (Helm/A&C Black, 2006)
So, what do we have here? Hmm, according to the Introduction, a book for the travelling professional with a pair of binoculars tucked away in his or her carry-on luggage who may have enough time between meetings to hop in a cab and get down to the nearest park or wetland [...]

Western Red-tailed Hawks Buteo jamaicensis
California, various dates 2004 - 2007
 
By far the most common and widespread buteo in North America, the Red-tailed Hawk is a bird of woodland and of open country, frequently seen sitting on telegraph poles or bare branches where it watches for rodents in the grass below (it’s worth noting that in [...]

Another interesting, some might say antiquated color choice employed by those who get to name birds is plumbeous. Plumbeous refers to a heavy, leaden gray. Those of you with an education in chemistry probably spotted the origin of this word, from the Latin “plumbum” for lead. The word plumbeous may also be used to mean [...]

The February 10, 2007 Freeport NY Pelagic trip may not sail…if you don’t join it!  I took this particular excursion last year and it was amazing. See Life Paulagics needs another 17 or so passengers to sail. You might want to be one of them.

Townsend’s Warbler Dendroica townsendi
Cascade Creek (near Ano Nuevo State Reserve), California. January 2007

On the 11th of January 2007 I had the most memorable two hours birding I’ve had for a long time watching wintering warblers feeding at very close range over a thick pile of rotting sprouts in a field at Cascade Creek close to [...]

(I first used this introduction last January when Aydin of Snail’s Tales presented a perfectly poetic I and the Bird #15. Almost exactly one year later, we have another Snail hosting another edition of I and the Bird. How could I resist?)
Watching wildlife is a delightfully stimulating activity, one that can be enjoyed thoroughly [...]