Journal Club: Gouldian Finches’ fascinating mating system

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Gouldian Finches occur in two morphs. Red heads or Black heads. Red-headed females prefer red-headed males – and black prefer blacks. In the small populations it is not always possible for the finches to chose their own type. When they cross the results are not good. However, a “hybrid” female will always have less viability than “hybrid” male. The stress of mating the “wrong”kind makes the Gouldian Finch able to regulate the outcome producing more male “hybrid” offspring which has better viability. Read Grrl Scientist fascinating account how the females do this.

Darwin’s Other Birds: Introduction

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Despite rumors to the contrary, Charles Darwin knew his birds. In fact, some of the most interesting writing on birds is to be found in his work. And, for the next several weeks, that’s where we’ll be looking for knowledge and inspiration of an avian kind.

Greg Laden joins Birdingblogs

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If you have you checked out NatureBlogNetwork lately (that is within the last 3-4 years), you may have noticed the name in the title. Greg Laden is number 1. His blog on ScienceBlogs.com gets around 4000 unique visits per day. That’s right! 4000 people visit his blog every day! Now Greg is blogging for Birdingblogs on Fridays. Maybe not every Friday, but he has quite a few posts in the bag scheduled. Greg shall be blogging here about Darwin’s lesser known birds.

Manitoba in June

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  Well my apologies ;-( I  know I have been a rather illusive participant in ‘birdingblogs’ in recent weeks, in fact I feel my feet have barely touched the ground […]

Bustard and Bastard are not the same words

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In 1960, the International Council for Bird Preservation met in Tokyo to encourage governments around the world to designate a national bird, particularly among species in the greatest need of protection in each country. Great Indian Bustard was one of the most threatened species on the Indian Sub-continent. An obvious choice to any conservationist. However, in the end, the Indian government decided to place the title to the peacock. The bustard was passed over because its name was similar to a pejorative term for an illegitimate child. Now the species is Critically Endangered.

Flaparazzi – is that a new word?

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A new word has been coined for the UK Twitchers. And it is not very nice. Flaparazzi. In two The Telegraph articles about the British Birdwatching scene – describes the mad recent twitch at Hartlepool where a White-throated Robin turned up in the Garden of Dr Michaal Reece behind his 3m walls. That would not stop the Flaparazzi.

Manu Road – A Third Time

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This coming October I’ll be doing my annual Manu Tour, my third visit to this megadiversity hotspot in Peru. I have no doubt that I’ll be seeing some new things […]

South Africa’s 8 Vultures

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South Africa has 8 regularly occurring and breeding vulture species, from the southern African endemic Cape Griffon Vulture (Gyps coprotheres), to the wide-spread and wide-ranging African White-backed Vulture (Gyps africanus). […]

Facebook for birders with a cause

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Those that read my regular blog where I post less and less frequently since I started Birdingblogs, know that I am obsessed about Social Media in general and Facebook in […]

Jonathan Franzen: Liking Is for Cowards.

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Bestseller author Jonathan Franzen is a birder Jonathan Franzen is a very famous modern American author praised by the critics and awarded many fine nominations and awards. He has been […]

Pilansberg National Park, South Africa

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Pilansberg Game Reserve (and National Park) lies just 1.5-2hrs drive west of Johannesburg/Pretoria and has received some measure of fame through the bordering Sun City and Lost City (luxury casino, […]

BirdingBlogs Fest #003 May 21, 2011

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6 posts from the past week of awesome blogs about birds. Tips for point and shoot cameras; Pelagic birding featuring Blue Fulmar and Zino’s Petrel; Fantastic shots of Ruby-throated Hummingbird; and Tom McKinney in one of his funniest posts – on how to identify plugs from DSLR photos on the Forum. Enjoy!