Life Sciences Commons^™

A Checklist Of The Birds Of Mormon Island Crane Meadows, Gary R. Lingle, Miriam A. Hay

Nebraska Bird Review

Mormon Island Crane Meadows (MICM) was purchased in December 1979 through a cooperative effort of The Nature Conservancy and The Platte River Whooping Crane Critical Habitat Maintenance Trust. This 2,000 acre preserve provides excellent habitat for spring staging migratory water birds and numerous species of other wildlife, In order to determine sound management practices for the area it was necessary to conduct an intensive inventory of the flora and fauna occurring there. This checklist represents the results of the bird inventory.

Notes on the occurrence of avifauna observed on MICM were recorded from 24 March 1980 to 28 July 1981. …

Whooper Recount: A Close Look At These Endangered Cranes Reveals That, While Their Numbers Are Increasing, Their Rate Of Increase Is Actually Declining, Paul A. Johnsgard

Papers in Ornithology

I have assembled figures for the 43-year period from 1938 through 1980, and have subjected them to various kinds of analysis. During this period, 220 young and 1,437 postjuvenile birds have appeared on the wintering grounds. This works out to an annual recruitment rate of 13.3 percent. (This is not exactly the same as the birthrate, of course, since the loss of eggs, chicks, and juveniles prior to arrival at Aransas is excluded.) The recruitment rate provides an estimate of the rate of maximum annual population increase. One hundred fifty-four birds that had been counted in any given year failed …

Spatial Learning As An Adaptation In Hummingbirds, Susan Cole, F. Reed Hainsworth, Alan Kamil, Terre Mercier, Larry L. Wolf

Avian Cognition Papers

An ecological approach based on food distribution suggests that hummingbirds should more easily learn to visit a flower in a new location than to learn to return to a flower in a position just visited, for a food reward. Experimental results support this hypothesis as well as the general view that differences in learning within and among species represent adaptations.

Teton Wildlife: Observations By A Naturalist, Paul A. Johnsgard

Papers in Ornithology

The diversity of wildlife in Grand Teton National Park and its environs draws millions to the valley of Jackson Hole every year, but few are the visitors who are able to observe individual species over the course of several seasons. Paul Johnsgard, a noted naturalist who has written many books on the waterfowl of the world, here integrates his own observations with those who have studied Teton wildlife in the past. The result is a compassionate, simple reconstruction of the lives of a few individuals from spring through early autumn.

Teton Wildlife describes the migration of a herd of antelope …

Etho-Ecological Apects Of Hybridization In The Tetraonidae, Paul A. Johnsgard

Paul Johnsgard Collection

A review of records of intrafamilial hybridization in the Tetraonidae indicates that at least half of the potential natural hybrid combinations that could occur in this family on the basis of known distribution patterns actually have been reported at least once. These include 15 interspecific hybridization combinations that involve 12 species and all of the genera currently recognized by taxonomists. The three most commonly reported hybrid combinations all involve lek-forming species of grouse as parental types, while the remaining 12 combinations are all considerably rarer and involve lek-forming parental species in 7 cases, promiscuous but solitary species in 6 cases, …

Maps Of Distribution And Abundance Of Selected Species Of Birds On Uncultivated Native Upland Grasslands And Shrubsteppe In The Northern Great Plains, Harold A. Kantrud

United States Fish and Wildlife: Staff Publications

Many areas of the northern Great Plains (Fenneman 1931) remain poorly known ornithologically. Knowledge of species distribution in portions of this vast area has been advanced by recent State birds books (Stewart 1975; South Dakota Ornithologists' Union 1978) but many voids remain. Especially desirable for biologists and land managers is information concerning the relative abundance of plant and animal species over large land areas. This information can only be obtained from extensive surveys of the biota. The field of community ecology has been severely hampered by lack of information on species abundance (Dice 1930; Cain 1947; Partch 1962; Udvardy 1963). …