BirdingGirl

Here is some interesting news I just came across—the first traces of color in a bird feather were discovered in a 47 million year-old fossil. Image Source: ScientificComputing.com Here is an excerpt from the New York Times article: To find well-preserved feathers, the scientists traveled this May to a famed fossil site in Germany near the village of Messel, where exquisitely preserved 47-million-year-old bird fossils are regularly dug up in an old quarry pit. The scientists inspected several fossils and removed small pieces from 12 fossilized feathers. They returned home to put the material under a scanning electron microscope. “You can see a surface of beautifully packed together melanosomes,” said Richard Prum, a Yale expert on feather colors. “This looks exactly like a grackle or a starling, where you have a dark glossy bird with a metallic sheen.” To read the entire New York Times article visit: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/01/science/01feath.html I personally think Grackle fea...

I saw a sad sight today during my lunchtime jog—a dead grackle. Or was it a starling? I'll get to that in a minute. I was making my way down to the trail along the Charles River when I saw what I thought was an injured bird in the middle of the road. It was just sitting there and I figured it was just stunned or maybe had an injured wing. The bird probably didn't have much of a chance, but the least I could move it out of the road. As I got closer to the bird I saw it had its mouth open and then I realized the gruesome truth—it was dead and was frozen in that position. I just got shivers thinking about it. The poor thing. Anyway, so it got me to thinking 'What is the difference between grackles and starlings?' I use the two interchangeably and haven't really made an effort to sort it out. Until now. I like to use All About Birds from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology as an online resource. The site is comprehensive and easy to use. (I also really like the 'Cool ...