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What is the Christmas Bird Count?

By Mike December 11, 2009 15 comments

This is is the most magical time of the year, one filled with holiday cheer, festive celebrations, and… surveys of winter avifauna? That’s right! For the American birding community, the holiday season heralds more than blinking lights, tree trimming, and rampant consumerism. It’s also time for the Christmas Bird Count, which explains why we’re republishing [...]

Egg & Nest

By Mike December 1, 2008 7 comments

You know your interest in birds has blossomed from passing to passion when you realize that you’re even enamored of avian artifacts from their abodes to their ovums. Yet, your aviphilia need not be avid for you to enjoy Egg & Nest, an absolutely gorgeous work by Rosamond Purcell, Linnea S. Hall,  and René Corado.

This [...]

Forpus passerinus and the Ornithologists of Masaguaral

By a Guest October 15, 2008 9 comments

Nick Sly is an ornithologist, recently graduated from Cornell and cast into the real world. He is currently located in Venezuela, in his first field job out of school, helping a Cornell PhD student, Karl, with his dissertation on vocal communication in Green-rumped Parrotlets. This population of parrotlets is located on one of the many [...]

So where did birds come from - and where are they going?

By Charlie June 28, 2008 16 comments

There’s an interesting article doing the rounds at the moment that looks at the early history of bird evolution and speciation by studying avian genetics. Simply put (which is the only way most of us CAN put it, I suspect) geneticists have analysed the make-up of specific slices of DNA from 169 species and then [...]

The Best Writing on Science Blogs 2007 (And Us)

By Mike January 2, 2008 3 comments

In the beginning of 2007, the indefatigable Bora Zivkovic compiled a collection of 50 selected blog posts showcasing the quality and diversity of writing on science blogs in 2006. This volume, The Open Laboratory: The Best Writing on Science Blogs 2006, was not only an outstanding representation of how exceptional science blogging can be but [...]