The most expensive book in the world

[Lori]

Ha is Huh! a new topic title?

Anyway, the book is Birds of America http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/eu_britain...

[Carol]

hmm, I'm looking at our library's copy...of course it's not the same edition, dang.

[Jonathan]

Audubon's original watercolor paintings from which the engravings for The Birds of North America were adapted are in the collection of the New York Historical Society. Very beautiful objects:

http://emuseum.nyhistory.org/code/emu...

[Lori]

I'll say. Beautiful.

This morning 2 glittery royal blue birds flashed deep into the bushes, I'd never seen those before, I have to look them up.

[Lobstergirl, el principe]

I'm trying to find out what kind of birds flew over my house a couple weeks ago. Large, but not as large as a seagull; gray bodies; a distinctive white stripe on the underside of their wings. It's hard to find photos that show the underside of birds' wings. I think perhaps they were migrating, as there were two flocks in succession, heading south.

[Phil]

Was the underwing stripe parallel to the body, or perpendicular?

We've noticed a new bird this year, pretty much as you described, where the stripe runs perpendicular to the body -- from the torso to the wingtip. They sit on the roads in the evening, not flying away until a car is almost on top of them. When in flight, they love to swoop towards the headlights of moving vehicles. Maybe they're hunting insects?

[Lobstergirl, el principe]

The underwing stripe on my birds was parallel.

I wonder if the bird you saw might be some kind of plover? Although, plover are shorebirds. Are you near a shore? They do eat insects.

[Phil]

We're not near a shore, though we do have a couple of nearby reservoirs.

Mostly what's around me is desert and farms (odd combination). There are a lot of cows (mooooo) and cornfields just down the hill, and that's where I've seen most of these birds.

[janine]

i want to post bird pictures too. these are around cows sometimes:


oyster catcher


godwit

[image error]
lapwing


redshank

[Lori]

Ah what I saw was a Steller's Jay. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steller%...

[Félix]

I was gonna say stellar jay. Neat bird. Used to see them in the Utah desert a lot.

[Lori]

Sure have a raucous obnoxious voice, surprising from such a pretty bird.

[Jonathan]

To a British person, that last sentence might have a funny double meaning.

[Félix]

Lori wrote: "Sure have a raucous obnoxious voice, surprising from such a pretty bird."

Being a cousin of the crow shows there.

[Lori]

Ha Jonathan!

[Lobstergirl, el principe]

Lori wrote: "Ah what I saw was a Steller's Jay. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steller%..."

Pretty!

[Lobstergirl, el principe]

Lobstergirl wrote: "I'm trying to find out what kind of birds flew over my house a couple weeks ago. Large, but not as large as a seagull; gray bodies; a distinctive white stripe on the underside of their wings. It'..."

I'm thinking what I saw was Franklin's gulls.

[Heidi]

Lori wrote: "Ha is Huh! a new topic title?

Anyway, the book is Birds of America http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/eu_britain..."

I would love that book.

[Heidi]

Lori, your Stellar Jay is gorgeous! I've never seen one.

LG, your plover's got the cutest little face! :)

[Phil]

Stellar's Jays were all over in Bellevue, WA. My wife liked to throw peanuts on the lawn for them to go after.

[Lobstergirl, el principe]

Saw a red-tailed hawk in a tree right outside my living room today. Cool, as I live in a city. I had seen what I thought was a hawk in the same tree a few months ago but didn't know whether to believe my eyes.

[Jackie "the Librarian"]

LG, I think hawks and other raptors have really been rebounding the last few years, now that DDT is truly out of the ecosystem.

It's like with the bedbugs coming back, but better.

[Lobstergirl, el principe]

Shudder....I've never seen a bedbug and pray I never will. I don't think I would pay the price of bedbugs for more raptors...

I've got a small infestation of fungus gnats on one of my houseplants and that's bad enough.