Saturday, September 06, 2014

Today is International Shorebirds Day!

Here's a Good Article about what the Manomet Center for Conservation Sciences is doing. This is who listener's PhD*Son works for, especially with American Oystercatchers and Semipalmated Sandpipers.  

Photos of birds by PhD*Son
Photo of PhD*Son by Brad Winn
NOAA Migration Map via Manomet

Blue Geese

King Eider trio

American Golden Plover
PhD*Son writes:  "Best distinguished by dark tail and plain gray underwing without black armpit. Breeding plumage has black belly and undertail coverts. Soul melting eyes."

PhD*Son contemplating a Ruddy Turnstone

PhD*Son writes: "This is the flight path from one of our tagged Semipalmated Sandpipers. This bird flew over 10,000 miles in a single year, Including a 3300 mile non-stop (six days) jump from James Bay in Canada to the coast of Venezuela.  Oh, and it weighs about as much as an AA battery."

3 comments:

  1. Dean!!!!

    It absolutely astounded me to read that some hummingbirds--HUMMINGBIRDS!--migrate across the Gulf of Mexico...

    I remember reading about a species of turtle that migrates from Brazil to nest on some islands very far off the coast--considerably beyond the range of similar species elsewhere. One theoretical explanation is that they started migrating when the islands were much closer to the coast, and generation after generation followed the islands out into the ocean.

    Hereabouts the ambulance services are mostly private companies, but the units are based at the fire stations because besides being well distributed in the county they provide staff support facilities around the clock. I don't know how it is elsewhere in Japan, but in my wife's home prefecture (which has historically had Socialist governments), ambulance service is free. And I will never forget the time we took our daughter to the emergency room for a sudden high fever; we took a taxi, and when it came time to settle up with the hospital, the ER charges were less than the taxi ride. Granted the ER services were rather rudimentary, and the physician obviously not long out of medical school, but it was certainly adequate.

    --Alan

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    Replies
    1. I should specifically state that our ER visit was in Japan (Kanagawa Prefecture), but you could probably figure that out, no?

      --Alan

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  2. The creatures of the earth are just amazing. It's just too bad mankind has to mess things up for everybody.

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