New York birders!

For any of you who might be birders and are lucky enough to live in the Big Apple, here are two websites that might be of interest to you.

The first is:

http://www.nycbirdreport.com/

A list is compiled of all the native, migratory and well... many many species of bird that have been (or not) spotted around the areas it listed. If you click on a location and then on a bird it will give you a sighting numbers along with the month sighted in. Unfortunately it seems to have not been updated since 2007, but at least you can get an idea of the sightings. Maybe if the website owner gets more traffic he/she will see people are interested.

The second is a fellow Blogspot blogger:

http://citybirder.blogspot.com/

This one is updated very frequently and is very informative. Rare bird alerts, sightings from trips and other wildlife and much more. It's a great website. Go check it out!

Hope this helped a little!

Australian Thylacine; resurrected from extinction... almost.

The Thylacine (Thylacinus cynocephalus). An animal that has terrified me, baffled me and deeply interested me ever since I could remember. I don't remember how I found out about the animal when I was little, but I was shocked and depressed when I discovered it had been extinct since 1936.

After the bounty that had been placed on their heads, the last known Thylacine ("Benjamin" as it was named - though the sex was unconfirmed) was captured and sent to the Hobart Zoo in 1933.

It's obvious why this animal was bountied; it was one of the largest carnivorous marsupials known to that time. Its jaws were abnormally large and wide. The stripes on its back would make one think of a tiger (hence Tasmanian tiger). Above all people during that time did not have the knowledge of animals, the balance of nature, extinction and science that we do now.

But now that we understand and the animal is extinct... what do we do?

None of us can do much besides study at the evidence that they had left behind.

One man, former Science dean of the University of NSW, is trying to change that. How? By the science of cloning.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/a-cure-for-extinction/story-e6frgck6-1225757981767

When he was director of the Australian Museum, Archer set off, armed with gene technology, in the hope that he could bring back a Tasmanian tiger or thylacine. Others continue that hunt while Archer has fixed his sights on another extinct native; he will not say which: "The team that's been working on this now for three years has sworn in blood that we won't mention what it is."

But the optimists on the team, and Archer is one of them, think they may be ready to go public with a world first as soon as this year. Already, he says, they have managed to get the animal's DNA to reactivate, an essential step on the path to cloning. He is cagey when asked why this unidentified animal is a better prospect than the thylacine: "Suffice it to say, we're working with slightly better material."

Here's to hope, many breakthroughs and success!

Thanks to Where Light Meets Dark.

Mouth full of nom.

Didn't your mother ever teach you not to talk with your mouth full?

Enjoy some pictures of greedy little birds who bit off more than they can chew.

http://www.burdr.com/2009/12/dont-tweet-with-your-mouth-full/

Thanks to Burdr.com!

Twitter!

Hey everyone! Just a quick blog post to let you all know that I have two Twitters and I'd appreciate the follows and support!

My personal Twitter:

https://twitter.com/Guiltyx23

My Twitter for causes and petitions:

https://twitter.com/HelpTheWorldOut

Flying frog? Stow-away? Free rider?

http://www.burdr.com/2010/01/frog-on-a-bird/

A man named Dennis Davenport caught these images of a Downy Woodpecker (Picoides pubescens) that appears to have some sort of frog nestled underneath the feathers of its wing. Has anyone ever seen anything like this before? The frog seems to have made a mess of the feathers but aren't known to be parasitic.
A comment from the article reads:"When seeing these photos, I can’t help but wonder if the little Downy Woodpecker is okay."

"Dennis says:
It’s possible he is okay because he was jumping from weed to weed and weed to tree trunk with no trouble, and his head was jack-hammering like crazy to get what he wanted from the weeds."

Link to the Flickr gallery. Has an additional image:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/dsdavenport/4214866019/in/pool-burdr