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Archive for the ‘Birds’ Category

Animal Camouflage

Sunday
Nov 9,2008

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Sunday
Aug 17,2008

robin_new_species WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A red-breasted bird discovered by accident in the forests of Gabon is a new species, U.S. scientists said on Friday.

They have named the little bird the olive-backed forest robin, or Stiphrornis pyrrholaemus, but say they know little about it yet.

The Smithsonian Institution team found the bird while visiting the forest on a biodiversity project, said Brian Schmidt, a research ornithologist at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History.

“I suspected something when I found the first bird in Gabon since it didn’t exactly match any of the species descriptions in the field guides,” Schmidt said in a statement. (more…)

New bird discovered in Indonesia

  • Filed under: Birds
Wednesday
Mar 19,2008

Togian white-eye

A small greenish bird that has been playing hide-and-seek with ornithologists on a remote Indonesian island since 1996 was declared a newly discovered species on Friday and promptly recommended for endangered lists.

The new species is called the Togian white-eye, or Zosterops somadikartai.

It was first spotted by Mochamad Indrawan of the University of Indonesia and his colleague Sunarto, who like many Indonesians uses one name. (more…)

Spotted Sandpiper

  • Filed under: Birds
Sunday
Mar 2,2008

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Scientific name: Actitis macularia

Family: Scolopacidae, Sandpipers

Description: 7 1/2″ (19 cm). A starling-sized shorebird that bobs its tail almost constantly. Breeding adults are brown above, with bold white wing stripe, white below with bold black spots on breast and belly. Fall birds lack black spots below, have brownish smudge at sides of breast.

Habitat: Ponds, streams, and other waterways, both inland and along the shore.

Nesting: 4 buff eggs, spotted with brown, in a nest lined with grass or moss in a slight depression on the ground.

Voice: A clear peet-weet; also a soft trill.

Rock Pigeon

  • Filed under: Birds
Thursday
Feb 28,2008

Scientific name: Columba livia

Alternate name: Rock Dove

Family: Columbidae, Pigeons and Doves

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Description 13 1/2″ (34 cm). The common pigeon of towns and cities. Chunky, with short rounded tail. Typically bluish-gray with 2 narrow black wing bands and broad black terminal tail band; white rump. There are many color variants, ranging from all white through rusty to all black.

Habitat City parks, suburban gardens, and farmlands.

Nesting 2 white eggs in a crude nest lined with sticks and debris, placed on a window ledge, building, bridge, or cliff.

Voice Soft guttural cooing

Discussion Everyone knows Rock Pigeons, or domestic pigeons, as city birds that subsist on handouts or country birds that nest in pigeon cotes on farms. Few have seen them nesting in their ancestral home-cliff ledges or high among rocks. Over the centuries, many strains and color varieties have been developed in captivity through selective breeding. Since pigeons have been accused of carrying human diseases, there have been several attempts to eradicate them from our cities, but they are so prolific that little progress has been made in this endeavor.

source: enature.com