This morning I drove out to the Hal Scott Preserve. I was hoping to find a Red-cockaded Woodpecker; I had no luck there, but I did find at least 20 Bachman’s Sparrows. I’ve never heard so many calling, and I saw 8 more more. Some were juveniles too. I think these are my best photos […]
Naturalist rediscovers the long-lost night parrot
An Australian bushman and naturalist claims to have captured video footage of the night parrot, a bird not seen alive for more than a century. John Young, who describes himself as a wildlife detective, showed the footage and a number of still photos of the bird to a packed room of enthusiasts and media at […]
Notes on Some Wetland Birds
Wetland birds have a particular niche in the bird world having adapted well in finding food sources at marshes, lakesides, bogs, riverine habitats and agricultural land.Herons, Storks, Ibises and Flamingoes have been classified under one sub group in the taxonomic order of birds in the Western Palearctic. This area (below) is one of eight zones […]
Scientists build app to automatically identify species based on their calls
New technology makes it possible to automatically identify species by their vocalizations. The software and hardware system, detailed in the current issue of the journal PeerJ, has been used at sites in Puerto Rico and Costa Rica to identify frogs, insects, birds, and monkeys. Many of the animals identified by the system are typically difficult […]
How tigers are faring in their final frontier
“Gone are the tiger-filled days when Corbett, as a small boy wandering the jungles of Nepal in the 1880s, peeped over a plum bush that heaved as a tiger walked out on the far side.” Adele Conover, in the Smithsonian magazine. Even as recently as the 1930s, 40,000 tigers roamed the forests of India. By […]
Nearly Autumn
It is mid July and the daily average temp’ is around 35-37 deg’ with daily max’ temp raising to 40-42 (and sometime even higher up to 45-47). The nights are short with average temp of 27-29 with daily min’ temp of 22-24 deg andyet, another Summer is going to come to its end soon and […]
Scientists: lions need funding not fences
Fences are not the answer to the decline in Africa’s lions, according to a new paper in Ecology Letters. The new research directly counters an earlier controversial study that argued keeping lions fenced-in would be cheaper and more effective in saving the big cats. African lion (Panthera leo) populations across the continent have fallen dramatically: […]
Forgotten species: the arapaima or ‘dinosaur fish’
Everyone knows the tiger, the panda, the blue whale, but what about the other five to thirty million species estimated to inhabit our Earth? Many of these marvelous, stunning, and rare species have received little attention from the media, conservation groups, and the public. This series is an attempt to give these ‘forgotten species’ some […]