[ALIEN ANAL]

Originally Posted by Norma J

We don't call anything 'crisps'. It's all chips. Hot chips for your fries, and just chips for packet chips. I've heard 'crisps' used on Aerican movies. Never heard an Australian call them that.

Well me and my pals call packet chips, crisps. Buts its more of a Crisps sounds funny so we say it

[James Blonde]

Yesterday James Blonde shared a seat with one small crow for few seconds, guess crow thought it can eat a cigarette.

[noumenal]

So I was walking to a paper run-through today (we're hosting a conference here in a couple weeks) and saw a small group of warblers. You don't see them often around here - they mostly just pass through. Anyway, I said "Look, a fuckin' warbler. Jesus....those things are goddamn tiny, I tell you what." I didn't realize someone was right behind me - I must've sounded like a nerdy redneck. Oh well, whatever.

[Tokolosh]

 

I see magpies all the time. They're not scared of cats. Smart birds.

[noumenal]

 

Myrtle Warbler

Saw something like this today - can't make a positive ID. It was a warbler of some kind with a little yellow patch on the side.

Dinosaurs: look at what they've become......

[noumenal]

I'm going out today to birdwatch. I will report my findings.

[noumenal]

Allrighty, well I met another birder, but she was quite rude. She came up to me to ask if I had a bird guide, but I said no, because I didn't. She wanted to ID some purple martins. I said, "Those are cedar waxwings," pointing to some birds above us, and she snapped back, "Yeah, I know those are waxwings." Hmmph. At any rate, she was helpful in identifying the Yellow-Rumped Warbler for me. I was right all along, becuase the Myrtle Warbler is a variant. From Wikipedia:

"Three closely related North American bird forms—the eastern Myrtle Warbler, its western counterpart, Audubon's Warbler, and the Central American Goldman's Warbler—are periodically lumped as the Yellow-rumped Warbler (Dendroica coronata).
Since 1973, American Ornithological Union has elected to merge these passerine birds as one species. These two forms were apparently separated by glaciation during the last ice age, and developed distinguishing physical characteristics. When it was shown however that they were able to interbreed, they no longer qualified to be considered as separate species. The reluctance of some North American birdwatchers to accept A.O.U.'s change in speciation may stem from the changes in their "life lists". Technically, what before may have justifiably counted for two entries should perhaps now be cut back to one."



The females are a little boring, but they have a yellow patch on their ass. Thus the name.

 

The cedar waxwings that I saw are also beautiful birds that you don't see too often:

 

They're very colorful, but you have to look up close to see it. Boo-ya.

[hat and beard]

 

[noumenal]

whoa, yeah

Eric Dolphy rocks

[LittlePuppetBoy]

I keep seeing pigeons and mourning doves. This motning there were a few cardinals at our bird feeder.

But, a few days ago I noticed a group of mallards hanging around on the mostly frozen Rideau Canal (is it unusual for mallards to be in Canada during the winter?)

[Hip Priest]

Want to measure the health of a bird population without having to catch birds and run tests on them? Just count the spots on their eggs, say Santiago Merino and colleagues at the University of Alcalá in Spain. The spottier the egg, the more stressed the parent, the team has found.

The team photographed 112 blue tit (Cyanistes caeruleus) egg clutches in central Spain, weighed the parents and ran blood tests. They found that females that laid eggs with more spots weighed less and had higher cellular concentrations of a stress-related protein called HSP70 than females that laid less spotty eggs (Journal of Avian Biology, vol 38, p 377).

The team suggests that the eggshell pigment protoporphyrin is responsible for the correlation. Levels of the pigment chemical rise as stress levels increase in the female, which would explain the greater coloration in the eggshell when it is laid. Egg speckling could be a cue for male blue tits to work harder to feed underweight chicks, says Merino. Alternatively, speckling may be a cue to abandon the nest and find a healthier female.

"This could be really useful, since almost all of the endangered Hawaiian birds we work with have spotted eggs," says Alan Lieberman at San Diego Zoo in California.

From issue 2604 of New Scientist magazine, 21 May 2007, page 22

[Green_mind]

I see this beatiful short-eared owl down by the river where I live.

 

Loads of swans too, I think it's mating season. One flew past me down the center of the river a couple of days ago, pretty amazing how big their wing span is and the noise they make.