Friday, June 6, 2014
Thursday, May 22, 2014
New Bird items up on our Zazzle store!
Chicken (Gallus gallus domesticus) shirt by LiteratureLyrics
Design your own custom shirts online at Zazzle
Tuesday, April 29, 2014
William Bartram on the Carolina Parakeet (Psittacus carolinensis)
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| "Carolina Parakeet" J.J. Audubon |
In 1773-1774, William Bartram travelled throughout the Southeastern U.S., cataloguing flora and fauna along the way. In his Travels & Other Writings, he writes of the Carolina parakeet, the only native North American parrot species, now extinct.
The parakeets (psitacus Caroliniensis) never reach so far North as Pennsylvania, which to me is unaccountable, considering they are a bird of such singularly rapid flight, that they could easily perform the journey in ten or twelve hours from North Carolina, where they are very numberous, and we abound with all the fruits which they delight in.
I was assured in Carolina, that these birds, for a month or two in the coldest winter weather, house themselves in hollow Cypress trees, clinging fast to each other like bees in a hive, where they continue in a torpid state until the warmth of the returning spring reanimates them, when they issue forth from their late dark, cold winter cloisters.
They are easily tamed, when they become docile and familiar, but never learn to imitate the human language.
For more information on the Carolina Parakeet, visit: Audubon on the Carolina Parakeet.
Resources: Bartram, William. Travels and Other Writings. New York: Penguin Books, 1996.
Thursday, April 24, 2014
Friday, April 18, 2014
To Know the Crow: Monday, April 21, 7:30 p.m.
Monday, April 21, 7:30 p.m.
To Know the Crow: Insights and stories from a quarter century of crow study
Speakers: Anne B. Clark, Binghamton University and Kevin McGowan, Cornell Lab of Ornithology
Wednesday, April 16, 2014
The Lapwing and Easter Eggs
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| http://www.permaculture.co.uk/ |
"Lapwing eggs - or plover eggs as they were known - had turned into a vast commercial market with reports of basket after bucket of plover eggs for sale in London's markets at Easter. Queen Victoria favoured her plover eggs cooked in aspic and Mrs Beaton supplied several recipes for the discerning cook.
With this demand came dedicated teams of 'egg pickers'. In 20 years they had stripped the whole of the south of England as far up as Lincolnshire. By the end of the 1880's plover eggs had to be ferried in from as far a field as the Scottish highlands and Holland. It was only in 1926 and the introduction of the Lapwing Act did this officially stop.
It is from this wild harvest, however, that historians believe lie the origins to the classic Easter custom of the egg hunt. Lapwing eggs hidden in the long grasses would be fairly difficult to find and the children's garden egg hunt is most likely mimicking this pursuit."
Read more from the original article here.
Read more about the current status of the lapwing in England here.
Read more about the current status of the lapwing in England here.
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