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The now thriving pigeon is ready for a home along with 100 other birdsThe baby pigeon with a broken beak was found in April, barely 3 weeks old and about to be euthanized. Instead the vet technician got in touch with Elizabeth Young at Palomacy, a rescue organization for pigeons and doves in San Francisco. It had somehow survived after being attacked by an animal, though its wounds were infected and its beak was split. It had been living on the ground at a gas station, fed by its parents despite its injuries. Today the pigeon is thriving though with...

Enjoy a respite from the sad goings on of the day. Please post and share your pics of birds, nature, anything the Good Lord has created. Remembering Swampsniper....may you rest easy, good man. -------------- Mr Limpkin shared a sun rise with me. There's got to a snail here somewhere! Who are all these strangers invading my territory? Oh deer!

A new study shows that frigatebirds routinely fly for months at a time without landing, skimming the sea surface only occasionally to catch floating prey. Previously, scientists thought these birds and another bird species, known as swift birds, only remained aloft for many days at a time... To stay aloft for so long, the study found, these birds use some of the same techniques that glider pilots do. They take advantage of upward-moving air underneath tropical cumulus clouds — the clouds that often look like popping popcorn kernels in the sky.

Neuron-Packed Bird Brains Point to Creation by Jeffrey P. Tomkins, Ph.D. * The amazing ability of birds to achieve ape-level cognitive traits—and in some cases exceed them like when they emulate human speech—has long confounded the evolutionary paradigm that claims humans evolved from apes. Now the bird intelligence evolutionary quandary has worsened as described in a new research report that shows bird brains contain over twice as many neurons per unit area as ape brains.

The macaw has a brain the size of an unshelled walnut, while the macaque monkey has a brain about the size of a lemon. Nevertheless, the macaw has more neurons in its forebrain -- the portion of the brain associated with intelligent behavior -- than the macaque. That is one of the surprising results of the first study to systematically measure the number of neurons in the brains of more than two dozen species of birds ranging in size from the tiny zebra finch to the six-foot-tall emu, which found that they consistently have more neurons packed into their small...

While millions of birds and bats are dying needlessly, wind and solar power inconsistent energy production cannot replace coal. The world’s economy needs fossil fuels, nuclear energy, and hydro-power that provide a constant source of electricity I saw the once verdant wheat fields of Eastern Europe covered with ugly wind turbines, slowly spinning their huge blades into the wind. A few funnel dust swirls were blowing the topsoil into the air. They did not appear to be connected to any storage station that would distribute the electrical power generated. I searched and found out that they were really not connected...

I had a pretty good morning. Hiked the Lake June Scrub State Park and good shots of the scrub jay and towhee. Came home to find the flycatcher posing in a ficus tree in our front yard; got his pic through the car window. Took a bike ride and found a great egret, a snowy egret and tricolor heron in the same small stream. The snowy and the tricolor worked the great egret. They were positioned about 50 apart. The great egret spent his time trying to shoo off each of them. As one avoided the great egret, the other...

Little Robin Hits Worm Jackpot

With apologies to Islander7, but I haven't seen an “Occasional Birdy Thread” in awhile, so I thought that I would post one. My pictures aren't as great as those posted by Islander7 or fidelis, but it's kind of like singing. All that you really need to do is to sing (or take bird pictures) well enough to entertain yourself. Blue-winged Teal Greater Yellowlegs Greater Yellowlegs with Blue-winged Teal Greater Yellowlegs Blue-gray Gnatcatcher Osprey Eastern Phoebe Solitary Sandpiper

Osprey alights on a snag above his nest to check me out and voice his displeasure with my presence.

Centennial Park in Irving is home to many birds, but none like the duck known as "Manny." A few weeks ago, the Mandarin duck showed up in Irving. Nature photographer Kent Jarrett said people named him Manny.

March 3, 2016 - As I drove home from work, I noticed a sandhill crane on her nest. March 5 - The first opportunity to photograph the crane on her nest. March 11 - Momma crane checks her eggs before settling in for the night. March 17 - The eggs have hatched. They are receiving parental instruction on what and how to eat. Crashing for the night! March 20 - The twins. Poppa crane was not happy to see me today!

I stopped by the lake on my way home from work yesterday for a little mental health break. Watching the activity of birds, turtles and other critters going about their business as they have for eons melts the work-a-day stress. All is well with the world. The bigger picture continues to unfold. My little problems are placed in their proper perspective; now for the weekend! ENJOY!! Glossy Ibis - Check out the colors in those feathers! Sandhill crane checks her eggs before settling in for the night. Whited winged dove. Male I think.

Here are few pictures from my walk along Lake Jackson today. Hope you enjoy. Sand hill crane on her nest. Pine warbler (I think) Purple grackle Cat bird

Took a walk by the lake this afternoon and finally got some decent shots of a little blue heron. He was not as skittish as usual.

Hey there! Been missing your bird threads. Looked out the window this morning and saw several doves fighting over the bird feeders. Inspired me to ease up the road a bit to an osprey nest I've been keeping an eye on. The pair there have raised their fledges for at least the past four years. This is likely their time using this nest as the rotting pine sways precariously in even the slightest breeze. At any rate, I thought about you. Hope you are well and able to get out. Enjoy!

China’s Worst Self-Inflicted Environmental Disaster: The Campaign to Wipe Out the Common Sparrow Back in the 1950s, China was going through its Great Leap Forward, an effort to transform China from a largely agrarian nation to a thriving industrial Marxist powerhouse. These sweeping (and often brutal) reforms, touched virtually every facet of Chinese life — and as one particular episode in China's history points out, the animal kingdom was also far from immune. In 1958, China ordered the extermination of several pests, including sparrows — an ill-fated campaign that eventually led to catastrophe. The Four Pests campaign Chinese leader Mao...

Every bird alive today can trace its ancestry to creatures that lived about 95 million years ago on a chunk of land that split off from the supercontinent Gondwana, a new study suggests. The new family tree, compiled using information from fossils and from genetic analyses of modern birds, also reveals that this lineage underwent a major burst of evolution after an asteroid slammed into Earth about 66 million years ago and killed off the rest of their dinosaurian kin. "This is one of the most comprehensive studies that attempts to date when these evolutionary divergences happened," says Luis Chiappe,...

New research led by the American Museum of Natural History reveals that the evolution of modern birds was greatly shaped by the history of our planet's geography and climate. The DNA-based work, published today in the journal Science Advances, finds that birds arose in what is now South America around 90 million years ago, and radiated extensively around the time of the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event that killed off the non-avian dinosaurs. The new research suggests that birds in South America survived this event and then started moving to other parts of the world via multiple land bridges while diversifying during...