The long-anticipated response [1] to the Cornell Ivory-billed Woodpecker paper [2] has been published in the Science, the journal that published the original paper, along with a response from some of the original authors [3]. The authors are well-known field…
Birds
Over the weekend, an Ivory Gull (Pagophila eburnea) was found near Point Pelee, Ontario. The sighting of one of these birds in the United States always creates a sensation, because it is a bird of the high Arctic, and fewer…
crisp brown leaf, wind-blown flake of bark, falling from tree nope, wrong: brown creeper The diminutive Brown Creeper (Certhia americana) is notorious for being unobtrusive. Even the creeper’s sweet, clear, musical song can be frustratingly difficult to hear due to…
The Auk is the journal of the American Ornithologists’ Union, and it publishes some pretty dense material. The last few years, it has featured an increasing number of papers on phylogeny, taxonomy, and genetics. This stuff tends to sail right over my head like a frigatebird on a stiff wind. A genetics paper by Edelaar […]
I am, at long last, concluding the cowbird/ Kirtland’s Warbler series: what is the future of Kirtland’s Warblers?
An introduction to Michigan’s signature bird.
Cowbird control has been credited with saving some rare bird species. But is it really the cure-all that the public thinks it is?
The last post, Cowbirds 101, received a few comments which I’d like to address.
Many people have an immediate negative reaction to cowbirds, and it’s often based on a lack of understanding about their ecology and impact on other birds. Let’s start out this series of posts by getting to know cowbirds.
Recently, there has been a buzz going around birding and conservation lists about some funding cutbacks for Kirtland’s Warbler management. Specifically, some of the cowbird trapping will be reduced. A message circulating regarding the cuts from one organization calls for…