The Story of O(ology)
After a seminar last week, my colleague Jannice Friedman, a botanist, asked me if ‘oology’ was really a word, as it had appeared on one of the speaker’s slides. So, …
Getting to the Bottom of Male Black-Throated Blue Warblers’ Migratory Behavior
Many species of migrant songbirds have a reproductive strategy called protandry, where males arrive at stopovers and breeding sites earlier than females. Ornithologists believe that males do this because it increases their mating opportunities and reduces competition among males for high-quality nest sites. Although it’s a common phenomenon, the question of how males arrive earlier is still unanswered for most species.
Do Songbirds Pay a Price for Winter Wandering?
In years when winter conditions are especially harsh, birds that depend on conifer seeds for food are sometimes forced to leave their homes in northern forests and wander far from …
Are Homebody Warblers More Likely to Sing Together?
Scientists who want to study the evolution of behavior face a fundamental problem: unlike bones, behavior generally doesn’t fossilize. However, that doesn’t mean that extinct species’ behavior doesn’t leave any evidence. The behavior of living or “extant” species can give us clues about the behavior of their ancestors, and we can use the behavior of living species, the evolutionary relationships among species, and computational modelling to make inferences about extinct species’ behavior.
Fly Like an Eagle?
Like many people, I am fascinated by bird flight. Unlike most people, I get to study flight of Golden Eagles for a living. These large birds move through the landscape primarily by soaring—a style of flying where they hold their wings outward and rarely flap, saving them considerable energy. Instead of flapping, they rely on rising air currents to gain altitude.
How Do Traits Change Across a Scrub-Jay Hybrid Zone?
Where should we draw the line between species? Biologists have debated this question for over 100 years. For much of that time, Ernst Mayr’s Biological Species Concept, which defines a species as a group of individuals that is reproductively isolated from other groups, has dominated the conversation. Recently, however, more and more evidence of hybridization between species has accumulated, especially in birds.
An Eye for Photography
In the summers of 1966 and 1967, I worked (Dream Job #2) for Bill Carrick at the Niska Waterfowl Research Station near Guelph, Ontario. Bill was an outstanding wildlife cinematographer …
Herbicides Don’t Affect Survival of White-Crowned Sparrow Nests & Fledglings
A number of birds that use forests disturbed by timber harvest have been declining for decades in North America’s Pacific Northwest.
Ornitholojests
Most of the ornithologists that I know have a great sense of humour. My old friend and mentor, James L. Baillie often took me birding when I was a teenager …
Contemplating the Tundra
CELEBRATING THE HISTORY OF WOMEN IN ORNITHOLOGY Until the 1970s, few women could have called themselves ‘professional’ ornithologists no matter how great their contribution to the study of birds. As …