Tag archives for birds
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By Mark J. Spalding, President, The Ocean Foundation One recent Monday, I got to spend the day doing something outside, not in a conference room, not in my office, just out in one of North America’s great natural wonders. My day began at 7, when the executive director of the Mobile Botanical Gardens, Bill…
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A newfound fairyfly that’s 0.01 of a inch joins a crew of the world’s smallest, including a bumblebee bat and a mouse lemur.
Posted by Today, April 25, is World Penguin Day, a time to marvel at these amazing flightless birds. In honor of the occasion, The Pew Charitable Trusts has produced a fun quiz that asks users to see what type of penguin personality they are most like. In the style of a Cosmo or Seventeen quiz, the tool…
Posted by In a fitting setting for America’s national bird, a pair of bald eagles is raising two chicks high on a tree in Washington, D.C. And it’s all been monitored live by a webcam provided by the National Geographic Society. This is an opportunity to not only observe these iconic birds in the wild, but also to learn more about them and their recovery in the Chesapeake Bay region.
Not Your Ordinary Home for Birds
Posted by Jay Wexler of Boston University School of Law on April 11, 2013 
Federal law makes it illegal for anyone to possess any part of a bald or golden eagle. Many Native Americans, however, use eagle feathers in their religious rituals. The Fish and Wildlife Service has granted permits to a small number of tribes, allowing them to run their own eagle aviaries. These aviaries, like the one run by the Iowa Tribe outside Oklahoma City, not only take care of many injured birds, but also provide feathers for those tribal members who need them.
California condors Sisquoc and Shatash welcomed a baby chick this week, in full view of the world watching them via webcam. “With just over 400 California condors in existence, this endangered species is still an uncommon sight, making this hatching all the more significant,” San Diego Zoo Safari Park said in a news statement about…
Scientists Link Urban Noise To Decline In City Songbirds
Posted by Alyson Foster on March 14, 2013 
It’s a fact: cities are loud. All that noise can have a deleterious effect on our lives, but humans aren’t the only ones negatively impacted by urban noise. Scientists have linked high levels of urban noise to a decline in songbird diversity.
Bringing Extinct Species Back to Life: Stewart Brand at TED
Posted by Andrew Howley of NG Staff on March 2, 2013 
Scientists now have the knowledge and the tools to resurrect extinct animal species. Learn how they plan to do it.
The Great Emu Caper
Posted by Michael Jourdan on February 15, 2013 
An emu was stolen this week from a wildlife park near Sydney, Australia. Could this be the perfect crime?
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Why would members of remote tribal communities, heads of state, Nobel Laureates, local activists, scientists, artists, and people like you plan to travel to Salamanca Spain? The l0th World Wilderness Congress will convene there on October 4 involving a great diversity of people, professions and activists who understand the importance of wild nature to…
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Valentine’s Day inspires silly displays in the name of romance, but heart-shaped candies and sappy cards are nothing compared to the show that nature routinely puts on. From balloon-blowing seals to penis-fencing flatworms, here’s a selection of some of the flashiest—and weirdest—ways that animals show off and compete to win mates.
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Scientists have figured out how owls accomplish their Exorcist-style head turning.
Posted by Many of the indigenous species of the Yucatan Peninsula are slowly disappearing. These range from the formidable jaguar to the colorful motmot and countless animals that play important roles in their habitats. Not only are these species indicators of the health of the planet, but they have also been fundamental icons of power, sacredness, purity,…
Genovesa was for me the most enchanting of all the islands we saw, not only because we got to walk along the rim of the caldera, but because of the birds in tremendous profusion. And what birds they were: boobies of every kind, frigate birds, gulls, owls, mockingbirds, finches. They were mating, nesting, roosting, sleeping, hunting, fighting. The sky was full of them arriving and departing from their feeding grounds. The noise they made, especially at sunset, was cacophonous.
Following tests on smaller islands, the government of Ecuador today begins the second phase of dropping massive amounts of specially designed poison on a Galapagos island thought to be infested with nearly 200 million invasive rats. Introduced centuries ago by pirates, whalers and other visitors, the rodents wreak havoc among the wildlife of Galapagos by preying on eggs and hatchlings of bird and reptile species.
Birds, Bison and Lions: Grasslands News from October 2012
Posted by American Prairie Reserve on November 12, 2012 
In an effort to increase awareness of grasslands issues and encourage you to fall in love with our world’s prairies, American Prairie Reserve compiles a news roundup each month. These stories will introduce you to the organizations working to restore this endangered ecosystem, demonstrate the diversity of the plains and showcase the many different approaches to…
After Sandy: Unusual Bird Sightings
Posted by Suzan Eaton on November 12, 2012 
Thanks to Hurricane Sandy, East Coast residents have been seeing a number of unusual guests at their bird feeders during the last two weeks. The hurricane disrupted migration routes for some birds, and others simply got blown off course by the violent winds. Factor in the winter storm, the two weather events have brought together a very peculiar group of birds.
When the African penguin made a comeback to the South African mainland in the 1980s, most people were thrilled that the embattled bird was again breeding in places other than on a few rocky islets off the coast of Cape Town. Fences and viewing platforms were erected to protect the penguins from tourists flocking to…
In 1835 Charles Darwin arrived on Floreana Island in the Galapagos, noting in his journal that it had long been frequented, first by buccaneers, latterly by whalers–and then political dissidents exiled from mainland South America. The giant tortoises Darwin saw on Floreana have since been extirpated from the island and the prisoners and pirates exist only in history. But the scenery he described remains much the same, and a tradition of leaving mail in a “post office barrel” for collection and delivery by passing ships has endured for two centuries.
In the lighthearted NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC ANGRY BIRDS: 50 True Stories of the Fed up, Feathered, and Furious (National Geographic Books; ISBN 978-1-4262-0996-3; on-sale date: Sept. 25, 2012; $13.95 paperback), author and avian expert Mel White reveals fascinating facts about angry bird behavior and tips on how to stay clear of the furious fowl. “Each amusing anecdote, which…
This is the second post in my account of a ten-day exploration of the Galapagos, on board the National Geographic Endeavour. In the first post, I described our arrival on the island of San Cristobal and our first visit to a Galapagos beach. We awoke on the first full day of our expedition to…
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His name is Bond. Easy to remember. This week the world celebrates the 50th anniversary of the birth, on film, of the best-known agent on Her Majesty’s Secret Service. Some 23 James Bond movies later, we still ignore everything about Agents 006 and 008, but know much about the man operating under codename 007. Except,…
Bewitched, enchanted, beguiling. Those are just some of the terms explorers across five centuries have used to describe the Galapagos, an unmatched archipelago of islands drifting in the vastness of the open ocean, in the middle of nowhere.
Henry Henshaw: The National Geographic Founder Who Helped Save America’s Birds
Posted by Alyson Foster on October 25, 2012 
A friend of Henry Henshaw’s described him as having an “innate shyness and personal dignity,” along with a “ready wit and a whimsical sense of humor [that] gave him a most attractive personality.” Along with his quiet charm, the ornithologist was a passionate advocate for America’s birds. When he resigned as Chief of the Biological Survey in 1916, he left as his legacy not only the Migratory Bird Bill, but also the Migratory Bird Treaty with Great Britain, the mother of all subsequent pieces of international conservation legislation. He also left nearly 70 bird sanctuaries.
Nusa Penida: Black Magic Island, Part I
Posted by IZILWANE on October 17, 2012 There exists a solemn rite that every Balinese Hindu is expected to complete at least once during this lifetime. They must make a special pilgrimage to “Nusa Penida”, the black magic island, to visit a particular temple whose energy provides negative balance to the positive side of divinity. At one time Nusa Penida was inhabited by…
