A trip to the American Museum of Natural History: Part 2. Birds

I've been in the suboscine section of the bird collection several times and it never gets old. This isn't the largest section but it does contain several of my favorite birds: the flycatchers (not looked at), manakins (not looked at), treecreepers (not looked at), antbirds, contingas, and Old World pitas. So I'd like to get back again and check out many more specimens. I'm just taking pictures but these collections are invaluable to science and there are many many publications out there demonstrating this. What is wonderful for me is to simply be in their presence and to look at them. I have used collections though to see if blue jays have easily recognizable characters that would indicate their geographic origin - they don't. If they did, then I would be able to observe jays in the winter and tell if they're migrants or not. Without a collection, I would never know either way. I also wanted to know if relative eye size varied by habitat in South American antbirds - I was scooped a month after I collected data. Again, you couldn't answer these questions without a collection. 

Batara cinerea - I didn't know this bird was so kick ass. Most thamnophilid-type antbirds are sparrow-sized. I could see this thing quickly and painfully removing the flesh from an ornithologist's hand. Putting this on my bucket list. 

Cephalopterus ornatus - greatest doo ever

Umbrellabirds are large cotingas and not related to crows 

Continga cayana - I'm in love. 

Cotinga cotinga

Cymbalaimus lineatus - I love critters that are striped like this

Cephalopterus penduliger. This species doesn't just have a great doo - check out the feathers coming from the breast. Remarkable! 

Formicarius colma - I have several papers on this bird. You're basic bird but so damn interesting

Two Grallaria species: G. excelsa in the front and giganta in the back. Antpittas are not so exciting as specimens but in the field they are really cool birds.

G. varia - a species I worked with in the Amazon and one of the most elusive, despite their abundance. They sing before sunrise and are able to move in the forest in almost complete darkness. 

Crimson Fruitcrow - another continga and this one restricted to the Manaus area. Love them. I a recording of one them giving a "BOCK" call

Hypocnemis cantator - a small antbird and there showing three subspecies (that are probably different species)

Myrmothera campanisona - an antpitta species I worked with in the Amazon.
This is most certainly a large canopy gap specialist.

Pithys albifrons - one of the showiest antbirds. Commonly caught and rarely seen. A specialist of army ant swarms. 

Pitta erythrogaster - Old World pitta. 

Pitta maxima - any questions??

Pitta sordida

Procnias averano - another amazing cotinga 

Procnias tricarunculta - a continga on my must see see before I die list. You can listen to them here. 

Pyroderus  scutatus - another amazing cotinga

Rupicola peruvian - Andean Cock-of-the-rock. Gorgeous.

A trip to the American Museum of Natural History: Part 1. Extinct and Type Specimens

The AMNH is, by far, my favorite place under a roof. Today, I brought my Archosaur class and I was immensely please by their attention and excitement that the brought to the collection. We were greeted by and given a tour by Dr. Paul Sweet, the curator of birds at the museum. This is probably my fifth trip to the collection but he took us to the section with type specimens and extinct birds. Totally awesome! The bottom pictures are Ivory-billed Woodpeckers, an extinct species of the American southeast. 

I was then left alone in the suboscines.

Migration morning... weevil barcodes in soil

This morning there were singing Song Sparrows (one with a different dialect - higher and quicker), a Cooper's Hawk calling, two flocks of Blue Jays (25 and 5), ducks were moving all over the place (I suspect an eagle or peregrine was on the river as well). 

We have a number of oaks on campus and the acorns are all infested with Curculio weevils and I imagined seeing the grubs crawling out of the acorns and into soil (where there is soil). So I imagined a bunch of sleeping weevils in the soil then it dawned on me that we could sample soil and look for weevil DNA and you could do this all over North America and get a very good idea of species ranges - and interactions. 

Warm day = bumblebees

We had a number of cold days with rain and then today was beautiful with one of those days that was perfect for napping outside. The asters are still in flower and the bumblebees were all over them. 

Urban ecology: predation

After the barcoding meeting I have been thinking small - on the scale of insects, bacteria, viruses and fungi and how much the planet (and our bodies) is just teeming with life. In urban areas, even the boring yard is filled with thousands of species and having all the classic ecological interactions, such as competition, mutualisms, and predation. Most of this goes unseen, unnoticed, and under-appreciated. Once in a while though big things eat other and get noticed. I haven't seen a pigeon around in a while and no Cooper's or Red-tailed in months but feathers were scattered around the house this morning. 

Changing the character of a university

When it comes to sustainability issues, I would give Wilkes University a C-. We recycle. That makes us about average and I don't think we do that well. We have a green roof that is probably less than 1% of the impervious surface on buildings. 

What would it take for Wilkes University to a sustainability leader in our area? I would love to see solar and green roofs all over campus and native plantings, campus vehicles that run on something other than gas. I think devoted students, faculty, and administration could do it.

Question is - where are they?  

As temperatures decline..

Had my first flock of Canada Geese heading due south today. Song sparrows were completely quiet this morning. Yet cardinals were feeding a recently fledged youngster today. My guess is that a nest failed once or twice then they finally got one fledgling out of it.