Great Source for Bird Photographs

I've just discovered the wonderful world of Flickr, an online depository of photographs of all kinds, including images of birds, and most of them are in the public domain! A search for the tag "Snowy Owl," for example, retrieved 55 images of this species, including this exquisite photograph from bananaram.

The International Rusty Blackbird Technical Group

The Rusty Blackbird has experienced inexplicably severe population declines over the past 40 years. This report provides an overview of the first-year activities of an interagency group formed to unravel the mysteries of this species and the reasons responsible for its precarious conservation status.

West Virginia Hawks

This 24-page booklet authored by Norma Jean Venable and Kathleen Carothers Leo and published by the West Virginia University Extension Service has a publication date of 1987(!), but is new to me. The booklet includes much useful, and still timely, information on the hawks of West Virginia.

Kimchi to the Rescue

Studies recently conducted at Seoul National University reportedly have shown that kimchi, a fermented cabbage dish that is a staple in the diet of Koreans, has potential for treating bird flu (or avian influenza).

Now comes news that a South Korean firm is poised to start marketing an air conditioner equiped with a filter that is infused with an enzyme from kimchi. A spokewoman for the firm "cited four studies from domestic and overseas institutions that she said showed the filter eliminated the deadly H5N1 virus."

Who Was Berlepsch?

Hans von Berlepsch (1850-1915) was a German ornithologist who used his inherited wealth to sponsor the collection of bird specimens in South America. Some 10 species or subspecies of birds bear his name, including the recently re-discovered Berlepsch’s Six-wired Bird-of-Paradise. Species bearing Berlepsch’s patronym include:

Crypturellus berlepschi, Berlepsch’s Tinamou
Aglaiocercus berlepschi, Venezuelan Sylph (a hummingbird) [treated by Monroe and Sibley as a subspecies of Aglaiocercus kingi, Long-tailed Sylph]
Acestrura (=Chaetocercus) berlepschi, Esmeralda’s Woodstar (a hummingbird)
Asthenes berlepschi, Berlepsch’s Canastero (an overbird)
Tripophaga (=Phacellodomus) berlepschi, Russet-mantled Softtail (an ovenbird)
Myrmeciza berlepschi, Stub-tailed Antbird
Rhegmatorhina berlepschi, Harlequin Antbird
Hylopezus berlepschi, Amazonian Antpitta (an antbird)
Parotia berlepschi, Berlepsch’s Six-wired Bird-of-Paradise [treated by Clements as a subspecies of Parotia carolae, Carola’s Parotia]
Dacnis berlepschi, Scarlet-breasted Dacnis (a neotropical finch)

Berlepsch’s Six-wired Bird-of-Paradise: Species or Subspecies?

Not surprisingly, the recent discovery of hundreds of new species in remote New Guinea resulted in widespread press coverage. Most of these articles focused on the re-discovery of the so-called Belepsch’s Six-wired Bird-of-Paradise. My curiosity aroused, I began my search to see what was known about this species. A google search failed to return any hits except for recent news accounts. A search of Worldbirdinfo.net did not return any hits. Searches of Monroe and Sibley’s (1993) A world checklist of birds and Clements’ (2000) Birds of the world: a checklist also failed to reveal any such bird. This mystery was finally solved when I discovered it listed as a subspecies of Parotia carolae, Carola’s Parotia (a bird-of-paradise) in Clements’ list. Clements’ authority for the nomenclature and taxonomy for the birds-of-paradise (family Paradisaeidae) was Clifford Frith and Bruce Beehler’s (1998) The birds of paradise. Beehler, by coincidence, was the leader of the expedition that rediscovered this "species."

Paradise Found

An expedition launched to the remote Foja Mountains of northwestern New Guinea by Bruce Beehler of Conservation International has uncovered a treasure trove of rare and unknown plants and animals. Highlights include discovery of a new species of honeyeater (the first new bird species discovered on New Guinea since 1939), re-discovery of Berlepsch’s Six-wired Bird-of-Paradise (not seen in more than a century), and the first photographs of the Golden-fronted Bowerbird displaying at its bower.

Bird Acronyms on the Web: OWL

Owl is common generic name for nocturnal predatory birds in the families Tytonidae and Strigidae. It is also an acronym for several unrelated entities having a presence on the World Wide Web:

ObjectWindows Library – a software programming package developed by Borland

Ohio Wesleyan Literary magazine – the annual literary magazine of Ohio Wesleyan University

Older Women’s League – a national nonprofit grassroots membership organization

Online Web-based Learning – a comprehensive homework-tracking system developed at the University of Massachusetts

Online Writing Lab – a program originated at Purdue and now available at many universities

Ornithological Web Library – a collection of 1,850+ sites devoted to wild birds

Ornithological Worldwide Literature – a compilation of scientific citations

Orthopaedic Web Links – a directory of orthopedics, orthopedic surgery, orthopedic
surgeons, and trauma

Our Whole Lives – a lifespan sexuality education curricula developed by the Unitarian Universalist Association

Web Ontology Language (OWL) - a software application

What is a Seahawk?

With interest building in the upcoming Super Bowl between the Seattle Seahawks and the Pittsburg Steelers, some people may be asking themselves, "What the heck is a Seahawk?" Good question. A bird of some type, obviously, but what kind? There is no known bird with "seahawk" as part of its accepted common (English) name.

Mike at 10000 birds offered his opinion that a Seahawk is another name for an Osprey, a fish-eating hawk that can be found along sheltered coastal waters. True enough, in The Audubon Society encyclopedia of North American birds, author John K. Terres lists “sea hawk” as one of the colloquial names of the Osprey. But Terres also lists "sea hawk" as a colloquial name for the Skua, an ill-tempered seabird that employees piracy to filch food from other birds.

The Seahawks team logo features a stylized profile depicting the head of a rather fierce-looking raptorial bird of some kind. But does it really represent an Osprey? To me, the profile is much more characteristic of an eagle than an Osprey. One of the colloquial names for the Bald Eagle is "sea eagle." That said, I have to admit that the alternate logo used from 2002 to present is very representative of an Osprey. But, on the other, Blitz, the Seahawks mascot, doesn’t come close to representing an Osprey, a Bald Eagle, or any other kind of hawk.

According to sportsecyclopedia, the Seahawks nickname "was the result of a fan contest that drew 20,365 entries and suggested 1,742 different names. Seahawks was suggested by 151 entrants and judged by the team ownership as the best choice." The logo is described as "a Native American totem-style hawk with a fierce look."

Professional sports teams are fond of naming themselves after large birds with reputations for having fierce dispositions. See, for example, Atlanta Falcons, Atlanta Hawks, Toronto Raptors, and Philadelphia Eagles. In conclusion, I believe it is more than likely that the Seahawks name and logo was never meant to represent a real bird, but was merely a marketing gimmick to get fans to relate to the newest (and first?) professional sports team in town.

Seabirds Suffer in Warm Weather

This article reports on the mass starvation of seabirds on the coast of Washington during summer 2005, a phenomenon first reported by the Seattle Times last summer. Unusually warm oceanic waters apparently disrupted the marine food web. This phenomenon was noted thanks to the efforts of Julia K. Parrish, a professor at the University of Washington, and some 300 citizen-science volunteers. Dr. Parrish established COASST (the Coastal Observation and Seabird Survey Team) in 2000 for the express purpose of documenting trends in the number of dead seabirds washing onto West Coast beaches.

Order of the Orioles

On my long commute to work this morning, traveling a road that I have travelled daily for the past 10 years, I spotted something that I hadn't noticed previously, a sign proclaiming Order of the Orioles. It turns out this is a fraternal, social, and charitable organization founded in 1910 that has a strong presence in West Virginia; there are 3 Nests (as local clubs are called) within a 20-mile radius of Martinsburg in Berkeley County. As the photos on the organization's Web site attest, these folks know how to have a good time. They also have a neat logo featuring a Baltimore Oriole.

Counting Albatrosses

This may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but counting albatross nests (511,612 in all) on tropical Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge seems to me like a heavenly way to spend a winter vacation.