Daily Archives: February 17, 2011

I and the Bird # 144: The Bird Vocalization Edition

Birders in every hemisphere spend this time of year preparing for the Great Migrations. It does not matter where you live, several species of birds are going arrive at your location, pass through, or simply come out of or flee to the woods or marshes as Spring or Fall approaches. This means it is time to brush up on your birdsong and vocalization knowledge because when the birds are en route or newly arrived they tend to hide and your best bet at identifying them is with the sounds they can’t stop themselves from making.

So, for this edition of the I and the Bird blog carnival, you will be asked to practice your vocalizations as you read through the submissions. For each submission I’ve indicated a bird call. The bird call is the link to the submission. So, when you go to visit the submission, make the bird call at the same time that you click on the link. If you do it correctly, there will be a special dinging sound. If you do it incorrectly, there will be no dinging sound. Keep clicking going through the links until you are able to produce a proper call, indicated by the dinging sound, for each one.

Good luck:
Continue reading I and the Bird # 144: The Bird Vocalization Edition

“Zebrafish and Dictionary Atheism,” PZ Myers and Greg Laden on Atheists Talk, Sunday

From Mn Atheists:

Drs PZ Myers and Greg Laden will be our guests on today’s show. PZ is in the Minneapolis/St Paul metro for a pair of talks this weekend. First he will be presenting “The Evolution of Cooperativity” to the Humanists of Minnesota on February 19th, and on the 20th he will be explaining the broader topic of Evolution to the Minnesota Atheists.

PZ Myers is not shy of controversy, as he seems to invoke and generate it at will through his blog, Pharyngula. He writes about atheism, science, politics from a liberal perspective, zebrafish, critical thinking, pirates, sexism and poorly reasoned e-mails. Greg Laden joins PZ for a question and answer session in our studios. Greg generates his own share of controversy at his own blog.

Sunday’s show is more open ended than our usual format. Greg is culling questions posted in the comment section at this post from Greg Laden’s Blog. I invite callers and e-mailers during the live show as well.

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