Boris < May 2008 – † 26 November 2019 I do not know his hatchdate or year even, but I know that Boris joined the flock after recovering from an accident that left him maimed. I always wondered if he “remembered” what happened. I always wondered if he ever suffered from phantom li … | Continue reading
Borjomi “Bulbulicious” † April 2007 – 16 December 2016 She was the closest to a daughter that I shall have in this lifetime, and indeed I proudly state that she was undeniably a daughter of mine. She liked to stay up at night and sleep late. She was into everything. She dabbled i … | Continue reading
I spent the Thanksgiving holiday with relatives in Saint Louis, Missouri. We went to the local zoopark, and I enjoyed the opportunity for some backyard and urban bird-watching. As nice as it was to see the Cardinals of Saint Louis (of course, I mean the birds not the baseball tea … | Continue reading
These photos seem to be all over the internet, but the story is not. In 2010, French customs officers at the Rochambeau airport in Cayenne, French Guiana after noticing some suspicious bulges, conducted an intimate pat-down of a Dutch tourist and found some tiny parcels in some v … | Continue reading
In the previous account of poultry in space, I related the story of how chicken embryos were launched aboard Discovery STS-29, but I did not make it to the story of birds (ex ova) in space. Despite claims to the contrary, someone did indeed try to launch birds into space, and the … | Continue reading
This is a story of how an eighth grade imagination and Kentucky Fried Chicken launched chickens eggs into the the final frontier. | Continue reading
Via Birdchick, I first learned that a gynandromorphic Northern Cardinal (Cardinalis cardinalis) had been spotted by a retired school biology teacher in Rock Island, Illinois in 2009. Minnesota Birdnerd has posted additional photos of this sighting. It was then that I decided to s … | Continue reading
Last May, I spent a day in Fallbrook at Emerald Forest Bird Gardens, the very source of our Toucan beak and feather specimens (NB: No birds are harmed in this research!). The special occasion was a NOVA filming event for the “Making Stuff” series, the first part of which aired la … | Continue reading
I have to confess my profound consternation over the fact that one of the top search engine terms leading to my blog includes the word “panties” And it serves as no consolation that the number one (by grand margin) search term on the list reveals what lies beneath the panties. It … | Continue reading
On Saturday morning, I was roused from slumber before 7:00 AM by the unnerving machine gun style alarm calls of the Bulbuls (of which there are now four free-flying in my living room). I stumbled off of the sofa, peered out of the window, and looked for a cat. I did not see one, … | Continue reading
vs. © Action Press/Rex Features/Stern via drugoi Orphaned image (?) vs. © Roman © unknown Photoshopping artist [original], submitted by Roman . . . Not that there is anything wrong with that! | Continue reading
This shot delivered me from some of the May Gray/June Gloom doldrums. Lesser Goldfinches (Carduelis psaltria) at Balboa Park, 22 May 2010 (spotted when I went to see the “All that Glitters” exhibit) | Continue reading
When I was last in Florida, I enjoyed a few marvelous moments of unexpected urban birding. As I was heading back at the end of the day, I spotted a Great Egret (Ardea alba) just outside of the hotel where I stayed. This would make a fine advertisement for the hotel. 15 December 2 … | Continue reading
While his name is Tiresias, I do not expect him, after being transformed into a woman for a finite time, to report that the female Zebra Finches enjoy sex 10x more than the males. Tiresias is not only blind; he hatched without fully developed eyes. This is a case of congenital un … | Continue reading
Himalayan Greenfinch (Carduelis spinoides) Saffron’s day out, 25 October 2009 His name is Saffron (and to avoid confusion, at least in my mind, I refer to the Saffron Finches as the “Flaveolas.”) He was purchased at Bird Crazy about 4 years ago, at a significant discount owing to … | Continue reading
A DC Bird Blogger wrote: “It is important to look up to see birds, but some interesting sights are at your feet, too.” He was referring to ice crystallization patterns, and unless he was trying to back out temperature and humidity from ice microstructure, I do not know for what s … | Continue reading
The first* (and second) positively identified bird of the New Year for me was a Black-billed Magpie (Pica hudsonia), spotted alongside Hwy 160 on the way to Wolf Creek ski area. And that was the first time, to my conscious memory, to see them! This was not the first sighting. Thi … | Continue reading
Last week, I was at the 3rd ICMOBT in Clearwater Beach, FL. There, I finally met Professor Julian Vincent, whom I knew until then only from his text. He is a biologist among mechanical and materials engineers who, after having spent quite some time studying insects, has crossed i … | Continue reading
Having discovered that my mother’s cockatiel, Tookie, is a choreographic prodigy, we contacted Dr. Aniruddh Patel, who led the study of Snowball’s moves. He and Dr. John Iversen of the Neurosciences Institute took an interest in Tookie’s stylistic and selective interpretation of … | Continue reading
A few weekends ago, my friends Dave (who was, by the way, the photographer of the wild Cut-throat Finch I posted before) and Misha (who watches girls rather than birds) invited me to go climbing with them in San Bernardino National Forest. Dave had asked me, “Have you climbed bef … | Continue reading