Specimens, Bald Ibis, and Razorbills

Northern Bald Ibis or Waldrapp
(Wikimedia Commons)

In my morning perusal of The New York Times, I came across this 2011 series on collecting. I thought it might interest others and it relates to our December public talk.

At the same time, my fiance was reading his Swiss newspaper and came across a story on a Northern Bald Ibis that took a wrong turn in migration this year and ended up in Spain. The Northern Bald Ibis, or Waldrapp, is a critically endangered species that, unlike other ibis species, prefers to nest on cliffs in arid regions. For more on this interesting species, check out the website here (click on the British flag for the English version).

And that story reminded me of a recent article I read on the eBird site on an invasion of Razorbills in Florida this winter. There must be something wrong when a pelagic seabird from the north shows up in numbers in tropical waters. You can read about the Razorbill invasion here.

Julie Hart, LAS Secretary