Tag: Conservation
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The Really Stunning Courtship Behavior of the Great Egret Part II
The courtship and mating behavior of the great egret is full of intricate movements designed to attract a mate while also halting the advances of the competition. Aside from the stunning displays, the Great Egret’s mating ritual is an annual extravaganza that includes the development of special feathers and color changes.
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The Stunning Courtship Behavior of The Great Egret, an Unmissable Spectacle!
The great egret has a behavioral repertoire that includes over 16 different displays. And only some of them are more prominent during courtship with the aigrettes, the spectacular scapular plumes, playing a critical role in helping magnify the optical effects of the displays.
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The return of the wood stork to South Florida
The wood stork is an endangered species in Florida. Although it is nowhere near the historical population that foraged and nested in the Everglades and surrounding areas, it is making a slow comeback mirroring the efforts to restore the iconic River of Grass, as Marjory Stoneman Douglas used to call what is now Everglades National…
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Are we doing enough to protect the magnificent hornbills?
Although the snake does not fly, it has caught the hornbill, whose home is in the sky Apparently not enough, especially in some African countries like Ghana and Cameroon where uncontrolled hunting and habitat degradation is decimating the hornbill population. If you don’t know what hornbills are, I encourage you to read my previous two…
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Can we stop the relentless spread of Bd, the infamous frog-killing-fungus?
It is odd that we have so little relationship with nature, with the insects and the leaping frog and the owl that hoots among the hills calling for its mate. We never seem to have a feeling for all living things on the earth. Jiddu Krishnamurti Early this month an article in National Geographic prompted…
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Part II: Nuts About Hornbills: What’s So Special About Them?
“No bird soars too high if he soars with his own wings.” -William Blake There are many fascinating things about these amazingly weird looking birds; a couple of them are pretty obvious their colorful and in some species huge casques and large bills. The other one, which is not so obvious, but very interesting, is…
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Nuts About Hornbills: A Fascinating Evolutionary Story
The extraordinary habit of the male, in plastering up the female with her egg, and feeding her during the whole time of incubation, and until the young one is fledged, is common to several of the large hornbills, and is one of those strange facts in natural history which are “stranger than fiction.” -Alfred Russel…
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2012 in review
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog. Here’s an excerpt: 600 people reached the top of Mt. Everest in 2012. This blog got about 4,400 views in 2012. If every person who reached the top of Mt. Everest viewed this blog, it would have taken 7 years to get…
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Goodbye Clawed, Enjoy Savanna Heaven!
“Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the fastest lion or it will be killed. Every morning a lion wakes up. It knows it must outrun the slowest gazelle or it will starve to death. It doesn’t matter whether you are a lion or a gazelle: when…
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Soreq Cave: A masterpiece of Nature
“The richness I achieve comes from nature, the source of my inspiration” -Claude Monet Back in 1987, while living in Israel and working for the George S. Wise institute of Life Science at the University of Tel Aviv, I was invited to spend a weekend of adventure at a Kibbutz in central Israel. My host,…
Conservation and Photography 