How to Use The Warbler Guide‘s Maps

Tom Stephenson and Scott Whittle have created the most innovative and complete guide to warblers available in The Warbler Guide. Maps sometimes seem like an afterthought in bird guides, but as this video makes clear, Scott and Tom have taken care to make the maps as useful as possible by highlighting seasonal differences in ranges and migratory paths.

Click here to learn more about The Warbler Guide. The book will be available July 2013.
For more tips on how to use The Warbler Guide and how to identify warblers in the field, please see additional videos in this series.

Wildflower Wednesday — Fringed Polygala

Polygala_paucifolia

© 2012 Carol Gracie.
Two magenta flowers of fringed polygala are held above
the glossy green leaves of this plant of the forest floor.

 


Fringed Polygala – An Instant Favorite

It’s love at first sight when a hiker catches his first view of the shocking pink flowers of fringed polygala (Polygala paucifolia). Its strangely shaped flowers might fool someone into thinking that this is a member of the orchid family, or perhaps the pea family. No other flower in the Northeast looks quite like it—that is no other flower of its size (ca. 1.5 inches long). The other members of the same genus are so tiny that they require examination with a hand lens to see the detail.

The flaring wings and propeller-like fringe on the flower’s tip give it the appearance of a small magenta airplane. Only by pressing down on the “fuselage” of the flower can you find its reproductive structures. The two sides of the flower that form the forward-pointing portion open up and the stamens and pistil are exposed—just as they would be if a bumblebee were to land on the flower. And, indeed, like many of our spring wildflowers, bumblebees are the principal pollinators of fringed polygala.

Fringed polygala often grows in large colonies and particularly favors mossy sites. A small plant, the contrasting glossy green leaves and pink flowers make a striking ground cover.

Learn more about fringed polygala and other spring wildflowers in Carol Gracie’s book, Spring Wildflowers of the Northeast: A Natural History.

 

How to Use The Warbler Guide‘s Icons

 

Tom Stephenson and Scott Whittle have created the most innovative and complete guide to warblers available in The Warbler Guide. In this video, they explain how readers can use the icons found at the top of each species entry to get a quick handle on location, habitat, shape, and color patterns.

Click here to learn more about The Warbler Guide. The book will be available July 2013.
For more tips on how to use The Warbler Guide and how to identify warblers in the field, please see additional videos in this series.

Happy Mother’s Day from #OddCouples

This Mother’s Day, we’re offering up some cheeky eCards for you to share with the special women in your life—all inspired by Daphne Fairbairn’s fascinating book Odd Couples: Extraordinary Differences between the Sexes in the Animal Kingdom, which publishes on May 15th. Trust us, human beings (yes, this includes Mom and Dad) won’t seem so strange once you’ve read about these other species!

Feel free to blog about, Tweet out, post to Facebook, and otherwise share these! Enjoy!

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Watch the Ring of Fire Solar Eclipse!

Tonight and tomorrow there will be a spectacular ring of fire solar eclipse; however unless you live in Australia, Papua New Guinea, or the Solomon Island you’re out of luck and won’t be able to view it in real life. Still, thanks to technology anyone can stream the eclipse live online! The Los Angeles Times are featuring live coverage of the eclipse if you’re in an area where you won’t be able to see it in person.
For everything you need to know about this type of solar eclipse, Space.com has a cool video explaining what will be happening:

And finally, for all things space related, check out these PUP titles:
The Milky Way: An Insider’s Guide byWilliam H. Waller

This book offers an intimate guide to the Milky Way, taking readers on a grand tour of our home Galaxy’s structure, genesis, and evolution, based on the latest astronomical findings. In engaging language, it tells how the Milky Way congealed from blobs of gas and dark matter into a spinning starry abode brimming with diverse planetary systems–some of which may be hosting myriad life forms and perhaps even other technologically communicative species.
William Waller vividly describes the Milky Way as it appears in the night sky, acquainting readers with its key components and telling the history of our changing galactic perceptions. The ancients believed the Milky Way was a home for the gods. Today we know it is but one galaxy among billions of others in the observable universe. Within the Milky Way, ground-based and space-borne telescopes have revealed that our Solar System is not alone. Hundreds of other planetary systems share our tiny part of the vast Galaxy. We reside within a galactic ecosystem that is driven by the theatrics of the most massive stars as they blaze through their brilliant lives and dramatic deaths. Similarly effervescent ecosystems of hot young stars and fluorescing nebulae delineate the graceful spiral arms in our Galaxy’s swirling disk. Beyond the disk, the spheroidal halo hosts the ponderous–and still mysterious–dark matter that outweighs everything else. Another dark mystery lurks deep in the heart of the Milky Way, where a supermassive black hole has produced bizarre phenomena seen at multiple wavelengths.
Waller makes the case that our very existence is inextricably linked to the Galaxy that spawned us. Through this book, readers can become well-informed galactic “insiders”–ready to imagine humanity’s next steps as fully engaged citizens of the Milky Way.

Near-Earth Objects: Finding Them Before They Find Us by Donald K. Yeomans

Of all the natural disasters that could befall us, only an Earth impact by a large comet or asteroid has the potential to end civilization in a single blow. Yet these near-Earth objects also offer tantalizing clues to our solar system’s origins, and someday could even serve as stepping-stones for space exploration. In this book, Donald Yeomans introduces readers to the science of near-Earth objects–its history, applications, and ongoing quest to find near-Earth objects before they find us.
In its course around the sun, the Earth passes through a veritable shooting gallery of millions of nearby comets and asteroids. One such asteroid is thought to have plunged into our planet sixty-five million years ago, triggering a global catastrophe that killed off the dinosaurs. Yeomans provides an up-to-date and accessible guide for understanding the threats posed by near-Earth objects, and also explains how early collisions with them delivered the ingredients that made life on Earth possible. He shows how later impacts spurred evolution, allowing only the most adaptable species to thrive–in fact, we humans may owe our very existence to objects that struck our planet.
Yeomans takes readers behind the scenes of today’s efforts to find, track, and study near-Earth objects. He shows how the same comets and asteroids most likely to collide with us could also be mined for precious natural resources like water and oxygen, and used as watering holes and fueling stations for expeditions to Mars and the outermost reaches of our solar system.

What’s for Dinner in the Milky Way

While for dinner tonight I am planning on eating some pizza as per usual, the Milky Way devours hot gas.

The Register reports that “the European Space Agency’s Herschel telescope has captured far-infrared images which appear to show the black hole sucking in a huge cloud of gas.” The images show the Milky Way’s black hole eating up hot gas like I’ll be eating up my pizza tonight.

Image via www.esa.int

 

INSATIABLE black hole in Milky Way’s heart crams hot gas into cavity

Space boffins have suggested the supermassive black hole at the centre of our universe may have a powerful appetite for hot gas.

The European Space Agency’s Herschel telescope has captured far-infrared images which appear to show the black hole sucking in a huge cloud of gas.

One astronomer said it looked as if the hole was “cooking its dinner”.

Set in a region known as Sagittarius A* at the middle of the Milky Way, the scarily huge hole has a mass of four million times that of our sun and is about 26,000 light-years away from earth. Nonetheless, this is by far the closest supermassive hole and is a source of fascination for space scientists.

Now the boffins hope their discovery will allow them to learn something about these interstallar maws.

“The black hole appears to be devouring the gas,” said Paul Goldsmith, the U.S. project scientist for Herschel at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which assists the ESA with their Herschel mission. “This will teach us about how supermassive black holes grow.”

Read the complete article here: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/05/08/black_hole_milky_way_gas/

For more on the mysteries of the Milky Way, check out this new book exploring all aspects of our home galaxy.

The Milky Way: An Insider’s Guide by William Waller

This book offers an intimate guide to the Milky Way, taking readers on a grand tour of our home Galaxy’s structure, genesis, and evolution, based on the latest astronomical findings. In engaging language, it tells how the Milky Way congealed from blobs of gas and dark matter into a spinning starry abode brimming with diverse planetary systems–some of which may be hosting myriad life forms and perhaps even other technologically communicative species.

William Waller vividly describes the Milky Way as it appears in the night sky, acquainting readers with its key components and telling the history of our changing galactic perceptions. The ancients believed the Milky Way was a home for the gods. Today we know it is but one galaxy among billions of others in the observable universe. Within the Milky Way, ground-based and space-borne telescopes have revealed that our Solar System is not alone. Hundreds of other planetary systems share our tiny part of the vast Galaxy. We reside within a galactic ecosystem that is driven by the theatrics of the most massive stars as they blaze through their brilliant lives and dramatic deaths. Similarly effervescent ecosystems of hot young stars and fluorescing nebulae delineate the graceful spiral arms in our Galaxy’s swirling disk. Beyond the disk, the spheroidal halo hosts the ponderous–and still mysterious–dark matter that outweighs everything else. Another dark mystery lurks deep in the heart of the Milky Way, where a supermassive black hole has produced bizarre phenomena seen at multiple wavelengths.

Q&A with author of ‘Odd Couples’

Daphne Fairbairn, author of Odd Couples: Extraordinary Differences Between the Sexes in the Animal Kingdom, completed a Q&A for National Geographic in which she covers some of the broader themes of the book. Check it out below!

Your spouse may baffle you at times, but does he latch on to your rear as a miniscule parasite 500,000 times smaller than you?

That’s what a male seadevil does. Is your honey 50 times your size and liable to eat you after a snuggle? Let’s hope not, else she’d be a garden spider.

e animal kingdom is full of amatory pairs whose extreme physical differences would give a matchmaker pause. But many of these dimorphic differences make good evolutionary sense, Daphne J. Fairbairn explains in her book Odd Couples: Extraordinary Differences between the Sexes in the Animal Kingdom.

National Geographic Senior Writer Rachel Hartigan Shea spoke with Fairbairn, a biologist at the University of California, Riverside, about why in nature, love isn’t always one size fits all.

Why are the differences between the sexes in some animals so extreme?

If you are coming into the world as a male, the way you get your genes into the next generation is getting your sperm to meet up with the eggs of females. So whatever it takes to do that is how the males are going to turn out. (Related Q&A: “Unlikely Animal Friendships.”)

Read the full article at National Geographic

Wildflower Wednesday — Blue Cohosh

Caulophyllum thalictroides

The seed coats of blue cohosh seeds become blue over
a prolonged period from August through September so
that some are always attractive to birds during the
time of fall migration. © 2012 Carol Gracie.

 

Blue Cohosh – A Deceptive Plant

The flowers of blue cohosh (Caulophyllum thalictroides) don’t attract much notice in spring. They are small and rather dull yellowish-green or purplish-brown. However, they bear looking at with a hand lens to better appreciate their strangely modified, fan-shaped petals that serve as glistening nectaries. The nectaries attract insect pollinators—in this case, various species of flies. What appear to be petals are actually the flower’s sepals.

It is the “fruit” that attracts the eye in late summer and autumn. The term “fruit” is put into quotation marks because what appear to be juicy blue fruits (from which the plant gets its common name) are actually the seeds of the plant with bright blue seed coats. By appearing to be fruits, the seeds appeal to birds at the time of migration, when they need a good source of fuel to continue their southward journey. Birds eat the “fruits,” gaining no energy from them, and excrete them further along their route, thus serving as dispersal agents for the plant.

k9668Read more about blue cohosh and other spring wildflowers in Carol Gracie’s book, Spring Wildflowers of the Northeast: A Natural History.

The Battle to be Born: Sand Tiger Shark edition

It’s a dog-eat-dog world and inside a sand tiger shark’s womb, it’s a shark-eat-shark world. While inside the womb, baby sand tiger sharks duke it out with their fellow unborn baby tiger shark siblings to be the lone victor (and only child) in this real life Hunger Games battle to the death.

In a report by National Geographic, Ed Yong discusses new information about sand tiger sharks gathered from a new study.

“The first embryo to emerge in each uterus—the ‘hatchling’—always cannibalises its younger siblings. It’s so voracious that at least one scientist has been bitten by a sand tiger pup while unwisely sticking a finger in a pregnant female’s uterus.”

From their diet of nutrients from its mother and the bodies of their siblings, these cannibalistic sharks emerge from the womb at a size that is big enough so that they can protect themselves from predators. Makes you re-think your own sibling rivalry a bit.

Check out more on sharks and animal family life from PUP!

1. A Natural History of Families by Scott Forbes

Why do baby sharks, hyenas, and pelicans kill their siblings? Why do beetles and mice commit infanticide? Why are twins and birth defects more common in older human mothers? A Natural History of Families concisely examines what behavioral ecologists have discovered about family dynamics and what these insights might tell us about human biology and behavior. Scott Forbes’s engaging account describes an uneasy union among family members in which rivalry for resources often has dramatic and even fatal consequences.

In nature, parents invest resources and control the allocation of resources among their offspring to perpetuate their genetic lineage. Those families sometimes function as cooperative units, the nepotistic and loving havens we choose to identify with. In the natural world, however, dysfunctional familial behavior is disarmingly commonplace.

While explaining why infanticide, fratricide, and other seemingly antisocial behaviors are necessary, Forbes also uncovers several surprising applications to humans. Here the conflict begins in the moments following conception as embryos struggle to wrest control of pregnancy from the mother, and to wring more nourishment from her than she can spare, thus triggering morning sickness, diabetes, and high blood pressure. Mothers, in return, often spontaneously abort embryos with severe genetic defects, allowing for prenatal quality control of offspring.

Using a broad sweep of entertaining examples culled from the world of animals and humans, A Natural History of Families is a lively introduction to the behavioral ecology of the family.

2. Sharks of the World by Leonard Compagno, Marc Dando, & Sarah Fowler

Everyone’s heard of the Great Whites. But most people know little of the hundreds of other types of sharks that inhabit the world’s oceans. Written by two of the world’s leading authorities and superbly illustrated by wildlife artist Marc Dando, this is the first comprehensive field guide to all 440-plus shark species. Color plates illustrate all species, and detailed accounts include diagnostic line drawings and a distribution map for each species. Introductory chapters treat physiology, behavior, reproduction, ecology, diet, and sharks’ interrelationships with humans.

Why has Nikola Tesla become a countercultural hero?

This video was taped at a recent event at the Johns Hopkins University bookstore. The speaker here is W. Bernard Carlson, author of Tesla: Inventor of the Electrical Age.

How to Use The Warbler Guide‘s Species Accounts

 

Tom Stephenson and Scott Whittle have created the most innovative and complete guide to warblers available in their forthcoming book The Warbler Guide. We will be posting a series of videos that highlight and explain how to use some of the key features of the book over the coming weeks. In this video, they describe the features of the species accounts which have been optimized to make them easy to use and to aid in identification.

Click here to learn more about The Warbler Guide. The book will be available July 2013.
For more tips on how to use The Warbler Guide and how to identify warblers in the field, please see additional videos in this series.

Celebrate Mother’s Day with Bird Fest

Instead of taking mom to just brunch, celebrate Mother’s Day with some spring themed events and activities (AND a brunch!).

If you are in the Pittsburgh area, Derek Lovitch, author of How to Be a Better Birder, will be giving a free talk on May 11th at the Audobon Society of Western Pennsylvania. The following day, Lovitch will accompany birders to Presque Isle in Erie, and then participants will head to a birdhouse painting event and a Mother’s Day brunch.

Bring the whole family out for a weekend of fun! For ticket information for the walk and brunch, visit the Audobon Society of Western Pennsylvania webpage.

Prep for the event and pick up a copy of Lovitch’s book!

How to Be a Better Birder by Derek Lovitch

This unique illustrated handbook provides all the essential tools you need to become a better birder. Here Derek Lovitch offers a more effective way to go about identification–he calls it the “Whole Bird and More” approach–that will enable you to identify more birds, more quickly, more of the time. He demonstrates how to use geography and an understanding of habitats, ecology, and even the weather to enrich your birding experience and help you find something out of the ordinary. Lovitch shows how to track nocturnal migrants using radar, collect data for bird conservation, discover exciting rarities, develop patch lists–and much more.

This is the ideal resource for intermediate and advanced birders. Whether you want to build a bigger list or simply learn more about birds, How to Be a Better Birder will take your birding skills to the next level.