Crow Faces (Image from NPR)

NPR has a great web feature about crows recognizing individual human faces. There is a video, a podcast, and a fun game testing if you can recognize individual crow faces.

The basic story:
A crow researcher asked students to catch and tag crows while wearing a caveman mask. Then he asked different students, of a variety of shapes and sizes (who never caught or tagged a crow), to wear the mask among the same crows. No matter who wore the mask, the crows reacted to it by cawing danger warnings to other crows demonstrating they were recognizing the facial features of the mask.

Project BudBurst

Springtime always peaks my interest in phenology. Recently, I went to a local book seller and inquired if they sold phenology journals, the women at the book store asked if I had looked in the New Age section. Right away I knew her mistake, “Not Phrenology,” I said, “Phenology.”

Here is a list of phenology resources from people and organizations who definitely wouldn’t make the same mistake.

The Minnesota Conservation Volunteer has a great young naturalists article on Phenology, including a teachers guide.

Project BudBurst is “is a national field campaign for citizen scientists designed to engage the public in the collection of important climate change data based on the timing of leafing and flowering of trees and flowers. ”

The National Sustainable Agriculture Information Service’s extensive phenology page.

John Latimer, of Grand Rapids, hosts an interesting phenology radio series with the MP3s available on his website.

Red Wing Nature Notes is group blog which holds true to its name.

And the Star Tribune reports that this week the first barge plowed upstream through the ice at Lake Pepin.

I didn’t realize that MaryBeth developed the National Eagle Center with sheer hard work and determination. Like many of us working in environmental science, she followed her passion.

The National Eagle Center is an inspirational place on its own – but learning the story of its development makes it even more amazing.

More information about airport owls from a Birdchick blog post.

Steve Furman's Films

Steve Furman is very talented local nature film documentarian who you shouldn’t miss.

His two children-friendly documentary films Ride of the Mergansers and Chicken of the Sea were filmed locally here in Minnesota.

Both films required great ingenuity and patience to film and were cleverly edited to engage children and adults. 

Steve and I met years ago while volunteering on an animal care crew at the Wildlife Rehabilitation Center of Minnesota where I think he bonded with an orphaned merganser and found his film inspiration.

Tire Swing Photo by Vitorio Benedetti

Here are a few distractions to chase if you’re finding it hard to concentrate this holiday week:

Coffee as Biodiesel follow-up: A closer look at the feasibly of using spent coffee grounds as biodiesel in response to this press release which I blogged about a few days ago.

Mystery Birds: The blog Living the Scientific Life (Scientist Interrupted) frequently posts a mystery bird photo and then IDs the bird a day or two later – it’s a fun challenge!

New Bee Benefit: They scare away caterpillars - really! 

Dolphins use sponges as tools: Just an interesting story from a great blog, Not Exactly Rocket Science, who also posted the above bee story.

Framing Science: This blogger has researched the intersections between science, media, and politics. Sounds interesting! I haven’t had time yet to throughly explore this blog, so let me know what you think.

The Upper Mississippi River Blog by Steve Johnson – timely, often pre-timely, info about the upper miss. 

Do you have a local environmental blog you’d like to share? Send it my way and I’ll post it here.