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The Bearded Vulture
An amazing clip from a BBC film showing how the Bearded Vulture gets and eats its food.
Links: HERE for the vulture episode. You will have to keep an eye peeled for the longer (57 minutes) film – I could not find it online.
Science News for Students
One of my favorite magazines, to which I began subscribing about thirty years ago, after learning that Isaac Asimov was a long-time reader, is Science News, the magazine of the Society for Science & the Public. For decades the Society has run an annual science competition for students, with significant cash awards.
The magazine comes twice a month, 32 pages of 1/4-page to 8-page stories, covering all sorts of science topics. I recommend it, but that’s not the point of this posting.
They also have a free website of Science News for Students, designed to spark and encourage a thirst for science, science research, science reading. That’s all good, in my book. [You may have noticed that while our blogsite was created to focus on birds, we’re also interested in many other areas of science.]
Here’s a series of screen shots from the site, beginning with the top of the opening page.
A bit lower down on the first page, some categories of topics…
Here’s one of those topics, experiments you can do at home…
They have a section on our most recent planetary catastrophe, obsession and favorite pandemic…\
Check them out.
[Chuck Almdale]
The Far Side Strikes Back!
It’s been only six months since Gary Larson’s The Far Side cartoons reappeared (legally, unlike all the other copies) on the web, a fact we previously mentioned here and here. The millions of illegal cartoons already on the web was part of the reason Larson started his own site.
The other reason is that he bought a digital tablet with a good drawing program, tried it out, and rediscovered his love of cartooning. As he put it today, in his introduction to some NEW CARTOONS (Ta Da!):
So a few years ago—finally fed up with my once-loyal but now reliably traitorous pen—I decided to try a digital tablet. I knew nothing about these devices but hoped it would just get me through my annual Christmas card ordeal. I got one, fired it up, and lo and behold, something totally unexpected happened: within moments, I was having fun drawing again. I was stunned at all the tools the thing offered, all the creative potential it contained. I simply had no idea how far these things had evolved. Perhaps fittingly, the first thing I drew was a caveman.
So check out the start of his new stuff.
I assume his old cartoons will continue on The Daily Dose, as well as access to the new. And put a permanent link to them on your computer, pad or phone fer cryin’ out loud!
[Chuck Almdale]
while passing through a duck one day…
…in the merry merry month of May…
Bufflehead male (Joyce Waterman 12-9-17)
Fish Eggs Can Survive a Journey Through Both Ends of a Duck
A new study finds some eggs remain viable even after being eaten and pooped out by waterfowl
Smithsonian Magazine | By Alex Fox | July 2, 2020
In lakes and pools that appear physically cut off from other bodies of water, fish sometimes seem to materialize out of nowhere. This somewhat mystical sounding theory might not be far off: a new study suggests fish eggs may simply fall from the sky. In experiments, some fish eggs hatched after being pooped out by ducks, suggesting that feathered flight could facilitate seemingly immaculate piscine invasions, reports Priyanka Runwal for Audubon.
Maybe that’s how those minnows got into your backyard inflatable kiddy pool.
[Chuck Almdale]
Puggles come to the Neighborhood
What’s a puggle? A spiky, beaky but cute zoo baby
It’s spiky, has beady little eyes and a beak. It’s an Australian animal called an echidna (uh-KID-nah) and a baby, known as a puggle, was born June 30, 2020, at the San Diego Zoo. The zoo’s Savannah Smith tells you about it in the video below.
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The San Diego Zoo tells you all about the Echidna (Spiny Anteater), the Australian egg-laying monotreme. All the information you’ll want and need for the next time you meet one on the street.
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Safari Park welcomes first-ever baby echidna, or ‘puggle’
The young echidna is still small but is growing quickly
San Diego Union | Jonathan Wosen, uly 2, 2020
It’s a First: A Baby Echidna Hatched at San Diego Zoo Safari Park
The puggle, now four months old, is “gaining strength and thriving.”
NBC4 | By Alysia Gray Painter | June 29, 2020
[Posted by Chuck Almdale]
SANTA MONICA BAY AUDUBON SOCIETY BLOG 