Syzdekistan

If you love wildlife, come down to Laughlin for this weekend’s Wings and Wildlife Festival. There’s a bunch of bird watching field trips, and a large number of seminars on a variety of topics. I’m giving a talk on wildlife of the upper Muddy River. The keynote speaker is Ted Floyd who is the editor [...]

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As many of you know, I just returned from a family reunion in Texas. We spent some time with some family friends in Austin and met some other friends there at the Mexican free-tailed bat emergence on the Congress street bridge. Our Ausin friends videotaped the amazing bat emergence:

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Since I participated in the “25 Random Things About Me” Facebook Meme and even cross-posted it here, it was very interesting to see Slate’s analysis on when it took off and how it evolved over time. By the way, I first got tagged on 1/27 and wrote my post on 2/2.

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I photographed this long-tailed duck this afternoon at Sunset Park. As you can see from the range map, it is a little bit out of its range! However, the bird book I use (The Sibley Guide to Birds), shows it to winter along both coasts down to the Carolinas and central California so it really [...]

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Thanks xkcd.

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Wow. The allegations against Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich are astounding. It is well known that the Chicago political machine is corrupt. Blagojevich’s predecessor is currently in prison for corruption. However, Blagojevich is accused of selling Barack Obama’s senate seat, selling favors for other positions, and threatening journalists that criticized him. I’m amazed that someone could [...]

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I finally got a set of my Cuatrocienégas, Mexico travel photos (Link) posted. Enjoy!

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Today I have been getting ready for my upcoming trip to Mexico for work. I am presenting at the 40th meeting of the Desert Fishes Council and this year they are having their meeting in Cuatrociénegas, Coahuila, Mexico.
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Cuatrociénegas is a very cool place for the conference. The Desert Fishes Council and University of [...]

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The New York Times’ excellent science writers take a look at how animals perceive death and the upcoming “Sim” game, Spore is played by evolutionary biologists:
“You always wonder why life tends to become more complex over time,” Mr. Wright said. “If you look at this balance between cooperation and competition, at almost every level it [...]

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The New York Times has this interesting article on the genetic relatedness of the peoples of Europe.
The genetic map of Europe bears a clear structural similarity to the geographic map. The major genetic differences are between populations of the north and south (the vertical axis of the map shows north-south differences, the horizontal axis those [...]

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