Great video of a crow sledding down a roof on a small intertube like thing (a lid?). Then it picks up the sled and flies back to the top and sleds down again. Awesome. The curious crow then flies off with its sled to try it out elsewhere (maybe).
Related: Bird Using Bait to Fish – Cat and Crow Playing Together – Dolphins Play with Air Bubble Rings – Friday Duckling Fun
Dinosaur feather evolution trapped in Canadian amber
The team’s find confirms that the filaments progressed to tufts of filaments from a single origin, called barbs. In later development, some of these barbs can coalesce into a central branch called a rachis. As the structure develops further, further branches of filments form from the rachis.
“We’ve got feathers that look to be little filamentous hair-like feathers, we’ve got the same filaments bound together in clumps, and then we’ve got a series that are for all intents and purposes identical to modern feathers,” Mr McKellar told BBC News.
“We’re catching some that look to be dinosaur feathers and another set that are pretty much dead ringers for modern birds.”
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a picture is emerging that many dinosaurs were not the dull-coloured, reptilian-skinned creatures that they were once thought to be. “If you were to transport yourself back 80 million years to western North America and walk around the forest… so many of the animals would have been feathered,” said Dr Norell.
“We’re getting more and more evidence… that these animals were also brightly coloured, just like birds are today.”
Very cool. Science really is great.
Related: Dino-Era Feathers Found Encased in Amber (2008) – Dinosaur Remains Found with Intact Skin and Tissue – Marine Plankton From 100 Million Years Ago Found in Amber – Giant Duck-Billed Dinosaur Discovered in Mexico
This story begins on Valentine’s Day in 1985 when biologist Stacey O’Brien meets a four-day-old baby barn owl in a fateful encounter that would turn into an astonishing 19-year saga. With nerve damage in one wing, the owlet’s ability to fly was forever compromised and he had no hope of surviving on his own in the wild. A young assistant in the owl laboratory at Caltech, O’Brien promised to care for the helpless owlet and give him a permanent home. O’Brien’s heartfelt memoir of life with this wild bird, Wesley the Owl: The Remarkable Love Story of an Owl and His Girl recounts their dramatic, and often humorous, life together.
For almost two decades, O’Brien studied Wesley and his strange habits intensively and providing a mice-only diet. With a heart-shaped face and outsized personality that belied his 18-inch stature, the gorgeous white-and-gold Wesley fascinated everyone he met, and touched many lives. Stacey and Wesley’s bond was especially deep; O’Brien discovered that owls are highly sentient beings with individual personalities, subtle emotions, and a playful nature that can also turn fiercely loyal and protective.
Cool fact: “While we hear in two dimensions, owls hear in three.” Owls can detect a mouse heartbeat under three feet of snow.
Related: Friday Fun: Cat and Owl Playing – Bird Brain (smart crows) – Using Barn Owls for Bilogical Pest Control in Israel
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This black cat and owl make very cute friends. They grew up together, follow their antics on the fum and gebra website. Other examples of interspecies fun: Cat and Crow Friends – Bunny and Kittens – Polar Bears and Huskies – Cats Connect with People, and Particularly Women, as Social Partners. Other times the interaction is surprising but not exactly friendly – The Cat and a Black Bear.
Nice view out my window from my desk today. This wonderful hawk landed on my deck and I was lucky enough to have my camera right next to me. It is so nice to be able to have this view instead of a view like the IT Crowd staff have in their basement IT office.
If you let me know what type of hawk you think this is that would be great – including links to an identification page would be appreciated too. Last time people helped identify a Sharp-shinned Hawk enjoying a meal. Enjoying nature in your back yard is a wonderful thing.
Related: Backyard Wildlife: Great Spreadwing Damselfly – Backyard Wildlife: Fox – Backyard Wildlife: Turtle – Backyard Wildlife: Birds
During a trip to the Smithsonian last week I found this great home engineering project. Kayty Himelstein and Amy Darr were frustrated: birds came to their bird feeder while they were away at school, so the girls never got to see them. They decided to build a bird feeder that automatically takes pictures of all the birds that came to the feeder. I believe, they used Lego Mindstorms as part of building it.
Related: Lego Mindstorms Robots Solving: Sudoku and Rubik’s Cube – Awesome Cat Cam – Science Fair Project on Bacterial Growth on Packaged Salads
The hummingbird did survive.
Related: Cat and Crow Friends – Darwin’s Jellyfishes – Bird Using Bait to Fish
This crow was the first animal observed using 3 tools in the correct sequence, without explicit training.
Related: Brainy Crows – Cool Crow Research – Friday Cat Fun: Cat and Crow Friends
Experts stunned by swan ‘divorce’ at Slimbridge wetland
During the past four decades 4,000 pairs of Bewick’s swans have been studied at Slimbridge, with only one previous couple moving on to find new partners.
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First suspicions of the rare event were raised when male swan Sarindi turned up in the annual migration from Arctic Russia without his partner of two years Saruni and with a new female – newly-named Sarind – in tow.
The pair’s arrival led conservationists to fear the worst for Saruni. But shortly afterwards Saruni arrived at the wetlands site – also with a new mate, Surune.
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As for why they may have split, she said: “Failure to breed could be a possible reason, as they had been together for a couple of years but had never brought back a cygnet, but it is difficult to say for sure.”
Bewick’s swans are the smallest and rarest of the three species found in the UK and each individual can be identified by their unique bill pattern.
Related: Bewick’s swan diary – Darwin’s Beetles Surprising Sex Lives of Animals – Backyard Wildlife: Crows – Duckling imprinted on this puppy in China – Bird Species Plummeted After West Nile
See more photographs of remains of albatross chicks on the Midway Atoll, a tiny stretch of sand and coral near the middle of the North Pacific.
To document this phenomenon as faithfully as possible, none of the plastic in any of these photographs was moved, placed, manipulated, arranged, or altered in any way. These images depict the untouched stomach contents of baby birds in one of the world’s most remote marine sanctuaries, more than 2000 miles from the nearest continent.
Related: Dead Zones in the Ocean – Vast Garbage Float in the Pacific Ocean – Sharpshinned Hawk – Biodegradable Plastic Bags and Bottles – 2,000 Species New to Science from One Island