title: Timothy-grass content: of some Lepidoptera use it as a food plant, e.g. the Essex skipper ("Thymelicus lineola") and the marbled white ("Melanargia galathea"). It also grows in roadsides and abandoned fields but generally requires nutrient-rich soils. Its pollen is a common allergen; it has recently been used in small amounts as part of a new hay fever vaccine Grazax, which is designed to recondition the body's immune system so it no longer responds to pollen. Plants persist through the winter. Dead, straw-colored flowering stems may persist, but only for a short time, and are recognized by the distinctive spike-like inflorescence. It is


title: Timothy-grass content: often confused with meadow foxtail ("Alopecurus pratensis"). Timothy flowers later, from June until August, whereas meadow foxtail flowers from April until June. The spikelets of timothy are twin hornlike projections arranged in cylindrical panicles, whereas foxtail has a soft, single awn. Purple-stem cat's-tail ("Phleum phleoides") prefers lighter soils and grows on chalk downland. Mountain timothy ("Phleum alpinum") grows above 6,000 feet. A "wild Timothy" was found to grow in Yosemite at the time of its discovery but may have been a foxtail. Timothy canary grass ("Phalaris angusta"), another species with a similar cylindrical panicle, is toxic to livestock. Timothy-grass Timothy-grass


title: "Nullsoft Scriptable Install System" content: FunctionEnd Section # Useless section because this is a simple "Hello world!" installer. SectionEnd !include "MUI.nsh" !define MUI_ABORTWARNING # This will warn the user if they exit from the installer. !insertmacro MUI_PAGE_WELCOME # Welcome to the installer page. !insertmacro MUI_PAGE_DIRECTORY # In which folder install page. !insertmacro MUI_PAGE_INSTFILES # Installing page. !insertmacro MUI_PAGE_FINISH # Finished installation page. !insertmacro MUI_LANGUAGE "English" Name "MyApp" # Name of the installer (usually the name of the application to install). OutFile "MyAppInstaller.exe" # Name of the installer's file. InstallDir "$PROGRAMFILES\MyApp" # Default installing folder ($PROGRAMFILES is Program Files folder). ShowInstDetails show # This will always


title: "Stewards of Gondor" content: son, retained nominal control of Minas Tirith, though during his incapacity the city was actually commanded by Prince Imrahil of Dol Amroth and (when Imrahil departed with the army) by Húrin the Tall, Warden of the Keys. At Aragorn's coronation, Faramir surrendered his rod of office to the King, but the King returned it to him, and Elessar confirmed in Faramir and his descendants the office of Steward of Gondor, creating him in addition Prince of Ithilien. Faramir was succeeded by his son Elboron as Steward of Gondor and second Prince of Ithilien. Faramir's grandson Barahir is mentioned in the


title: "Guitar pick" content: economical stroke on each note. For example, if the first note is on the fifth string, and the next note is on the fourth string, the guitarist uses a downstroke on the fifth string, and continue in the same direction to execute a downstroke on the fourth string. Some guitarists learn economy picking intuitively and find it an effort to use alternate picking. Conversely, some guitarists maintain that the down-up "twitch" motion of alternate picking lends itself to momentum, and hence trumps economy picking at high speeds. Guitar pick A guitar pick (American English) is a plectrum used for guitars.


title: "California condor" content: California condor The California condor ("Gymnogyps californianus") is a New World vulture, the largest North American land bird. This condor became extinct in the wild in 1987 (all remaining wild individuals were captured), but the species has since been reintroduced to northern Arizona and southern Utah (including the Grand Canyon area and Zion National Park), the coastal mountains of central and southern California, and northern Baja California. Although other fossil members are known, it is the only surviving member of the genus "Gymnogyps". The species is listed by the IUCN as critically endangered. The plumage is black with patches of


title: "California condor" content: white on the underside of the wings; the head is largely bald, with skin color ranging from gray on young birds to yellow and bright orange on breeding adults. Its wingspan is the widest of any North American bird, and its weight of up to nearly equals that of the trumpeter swan, the heaviest among native North American bird species. The condor is a scavenger and eats large amounts of carrion. It is one of the world's longest-living birds, with a lifespan of up to 60 years. Condor numbers dramatically declined in the 20th century due to poaching, lead poisoning,


title: "California condor" content: and habitat destruction. A conservation plan was put in place by the United States government that led to the capture of all the remaining wild condors which was completed in 1987, with a total population of 27 individuals. These surviving birds were bred at the San Diego Wild Animal Park and the Los Angeles Zoo. Numbers rose through captive breeding and, beginning in 1991, condors were reintroduced into the wild. Since then, its population has grown, but the California condor remains one of the world's rarest bird species: as of 2017 there are 463 condors living wild or in captivity.


title: "California condor" content: The condor is a significant bird to many Californian Native American groups and plays an important role in several of their traditional myths. The California condor was described by English naturalist George Shaw in 1797 as "Vultur californianus"; Archibald Menzies collected the type specimen "from the coast of California" during the Vancouver expedition. It was originally classified in the same genus as the Andean condor ("V. gryphus"), but, due to the Andean condor's slightly different markings, slightly longer wings, and tendency to kill small animals to eat, the California condor has now been placed in its own monotypic genus. The


title: "California condor" content: generic name "Gymnogyps" is derived from the Greek "gymnos"/γυμνος "naked" or "bare", and "gyps"/γυψ "vulture", while the specific name "californianus" comes from its location in California. The word condor itself is derived from the Quechua word "kuntur". The exact taxonomic placement of the California condor and the other six species of New World vultures remains unclear. Though similar in appearance and ecological roles to Old World vultures, the New World vultures evolved from a different ancestor in a different part of the world. Just how different the two are is currently under debate, with some earlier authorities suggesting that the


title: "California condor" content: New World vultures are more closely related to storks. More recent authorities maintain their overall position in the order Falconiformes along with the Old World vultures or place them in their own order, Cathartiformes. The South American Classification Committee has removed the New World vultures from Ciconiiformes and instead placed them in "Incertae sedis", but notes that a move to Falconiformes or Cathartiformes is possible. As of the 51st Supplement (2010) of the American Ornithologists' Union, the California Condor is in the Cathartiformes order and the Cathartidae family. The genus "Gymnogyps" is an example of a relict distribution. During the


title: "California condor" content: Pleistocene epoch, this genus was widespread across the Americas. From fossils, the Floridan "Gymnogyps kofordi" from the Early Pleistocene and the Peruvian "Gymnogyps howardae" from the Late Pleistocene have been described. A condor found in Late Pleistocene deposits on Cuba was initially described as "Antillovultur varonai", but has since been recognized as another member of "Gymnogyps", "Gymnogyps varonai". It may even have derived from a founder population of California condors. Today's California condor is the sole surviving member of "Gymnogyps" and has no accepted subspecies. However, there is a Late Pleistocene form that is sometimes regarded as a palaeosubspecies, "Gymnogyps


title: "California condor" content: californianus amplus". Current opinions are mixed regarding the classification of the form as a chronospecies or a separate species "Gymnogyps amplus". "Gymnogyps amplus" occurred over much of the bird's historical range – even extending into Florida – but was larger, having about the same weight as the Andean condor. This bird also had a wider bill. As the climate changed during the last ice age, the entire population became smaller until it had evolved into the "Gymnogyps californianus" of today, although more recent studies by Syverson query that theory. The adult California condor is a uniform black with the exception


title: "California condor" content: of large triangular patches or bands of white on the underside of the wings. It has gray legs and feet, an ivory-colored bill, a frill of black feathers surrounding the base of the neck, and brownish red eyes. The juvenile is mostly a mottled dark brown with blackish coloration on the head. It has mottled gray instead of white on the underside of its flight feathers. The condor's head and neck have few feathers, and the skin of the head and neck is capable of flushing noticeably in response to emotional state, a capability that can serve as communication between


title: "California condor" content: individuals. The skin color varies from yellowish to a glowing reddish-orange. The birds do not have true syringeal vocalizations. They can make a few hissing or grunting sounds only heard when very close. Contrary to the usual rule among true birds of prey, the female is slightly smaller than the male. Overall length can range from and wingspan from . Their weight can range from , with estimations of average weight ranging from . Wingspans of up to have been reported but no wingspan over has been verified. Most measurements are from birds raised in captivity, so determining if there


title: "California condor" content: are any major differences in measurements between wild and captive condors is difficult. California condors have the largest wingspan of any North American bird. They are surpassed in both body length and weight only by the trumpeter swan and the introduced mute swan. The American white pelican and whooping crane also have longer bodies than the condor. Condors are so large that they can be mistaken for a small, distant airplane, which possibly occurs more often than they are mistaken for other species of bird. The middle toe of the California condor's foot is greatly elongated, and the hind one


title: "California condor" content: is only slightly developed. The talons of all the toes are straight and blunt, and are thus more adapted to walking than gripping. This is more similar to their supposed relatives the storks than to birds of prey and Old World vultures, which use their feet as weapons or organs of prehension. At the time of human settlement of the Americas, the California condor was widespread across North America; condor bones from the late Pleistocene have been found at the Cutler Fossil Site in southern Florida. However, at the end of the last glacial period came the extinction of the


title: "California condor" content: megafauna that led to a subsequent reduction in range and population. Five hundred years ago, the California condor roamed across the American Southwest and West Coast. Faunal remains of condors have been found documented in Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, and Texas. The Lewis and Clark Expedition of the early 19th century reported on their sighting and shooting of California condors near the mouth of the Columbia River. The condors live in rocky shrubland, coniferous forests, and oak savannas. They are often found near cliffs or large trees, which they use as nesting sites. Individual birds have a huge range and


title: "California condor" content: have been known to travel up to in search of carrion. There are two sanctuaries dedicated to this bird, the Sisquoc Condor Sanctuary in the San Rafael Wilderness and the Sespe Condor Sanctuary in the Los Padres National Forest. These areas were chosen because of their prime condor nesting habitat. When in flight, the movements of the condor are remarkably graceful. The lack of a large sternum to anchor their correspondingly large flight muscles restricts them to being primarily soarers. The birds flap their wings when taking off from the ground, but after attaining a moderate elevation they largely glide,


title: "California condor" content: sometimes going for miles without a single flap of their wings. They have been known to fly up to speeds of and as high as . They prefer to roost on high perches from which they can launch without any major wing-flapping effort. Often, these birds are seen soaring near rock cliffs, using thermals to aid them in keeping aloft. The California condor has a long life span, reaching up to 60 years. If it survives to adulthood, the condor has few natural threats other than humans. Because they lack a syrinx, their vocal display is limited to grunts and


title: "California condor" content: hisses. Condors bathe frequently and can spend hours a day preening their feathers. Condors also perform urohidrosis, or defecate on their legs, to reduce their body temperature. There is a well-developed social structure within large groups of condors, with competition to determine a pecking order decided by body language, competitive play behavior, and a variety of hisses and grunts. This social hierarchy is displayed especially when the birds feed, with the dominant birds eating before the younger ones. Condors begin to look for a mate when they reach sexual maturity at the age of six. To attract a prospective mate,


title: "California condor" content: the male condor performs a display, in which the male turns his head red and puffs out his neck feathers. He then spreads his wings and slowly approaches the female. If the female lowers her head to accept the male, the condors become mates for life. The pair makes a simple nest in caves or on cliff clefts, especially ones with nearby roosting trees and open spaces for landing. A mated female lays one bluish-white egg every other year. Eggs are laid as early as January to as late as April. The egg weighs about and measures from in length


title: "California condor" content: and about in width. If the chick or egg is lost or removed, the parents "double clutch", or lay another egg to take the lost one's place. Researchers and breeders take advantage of this behavior to double the reproductive rate by taking the first egg away for puppet-rearing; this induces the parents to lay a second egg, which the condors are sometimes allowed to raise. The eggs hatch after 53 to 60 days of incubation by both parents. Chicks are born with their eyes open and sometimes can take up to a week to leave the shell completely. The young


title: "California condor" content: are covered with a grayish down until they are almost as large as their parents. They are able to fly after five to six months, but continue to roost and forage with their parents until they are in their second year, at which point the parents typically turn their energies to a new nest. Ravens are the main predatory threat to condor eggs, while golden eagles and bears are potential predators of condor offspring. Wild condors maintain a large home range, often traveling a day in search of carrion. It is thought that in the early days of its existence


title: "California condor" content: as a species, the California condor lived off the carcasses of the "megafauna", which are now extinct in North America. They still prefer to feast on large, terrestrial mammalian carcasses such as deer, goats, sheep, donkeys, horses, pigs, cougars, bears, or cattle. Alternatively, they may feed on the bodies of smaller mammals, such as rabbits or coyotes, aquatic mammals such as whales and California sea lions, or salmon. Bird and reptile carcasses are rarely eaten. Since they do not have a sense of smell, they spot these corpses by looking for other scavengers, like eagles and smaller vultures, the latter


title: "California condor" content: of which cannot rip through the tougher hides of these larger animals with the efficiency of the larger condor. They can usually intimidate other scavengers away from the carcass, with the exception of bears, which will ignore them, and golden eagles, which will fight a condor over a kill or a carcass. In the wild they are intermittent eaters, often going for between a few days to two weeks without eating, then gorging themselves on of meat at once. In modern times, a wide variety of causes have contributed to the condor's decline. Its low clutch size (one young per


title: "California condor" content: nest), combined with a late age of sexual maturity, make the bird vulnerable to artificial population decline. Significant past damage to the condor population has also been attributed to poaching, lead poisoning (from eating animals containing lead shot), DDT poisoning, electric power lines, egg collecting, and habitat destruction. During the California Gold Rush, some condors were even kept as pets. The leading cause of mortality in nestling condors is the ingestion of trash that is fed to them by their parents. In addition to this, cattle ranchers who observed condors feeding on the dead young of their cattle assumed that


title: "California condor" content: the birds killed the cattle. This fallacy led to the condor's extirpation in some parts of the western United States. This belief was so deeply ingrained that the reintroduction of condors to the Grand Canyon was challenged by some cattle ranchers, who mistakenly believed that the bird hunted calves and lambs. Unanticipated deaths among recent condor populations occurred due to contact with golden eagles, lead poisoning, and other factors such as power line collisions. Since 1994, captive-bred California condors have been trained to avoid power lines and people. Since the implementation of this aversion conditioning program, the number of condor


title: "California condor" content: deaths due to power lines has greatly decreased. Lead poisoning due to fragmented lead bullets in large game waste is a particularly big problem for condors due to their extremely strong digestive juices; lead waste is not as much of a problem for other avian scavengers such as the turkey vulture and common raven. This problem has been addressed in California by the Ridley-Tree Condor Preservation Act, a bill that went into effect July 1, 2008 that requires that hunters use non-lead bullets when hunting in the condor's range. Blood lead levels in golden eagles as well as turkey vultures


title: "California condor" content: has declined with the implementation of the Ridley-Tree Condor Preservation Act, demonstrating that the legislation has helped reduce other species' lead exposures aside from the California condor. There is no comparable anti-lead-bullet legislation in the other states in which the condor currently resides. In an article titled: "Condors or lead ammunition? We can't have both" published by "The Ecologist" in January 2015, author Dawn Starin states: "Over 60% of the adult and juvenile deaths (that is, excluding chicks and fledglings) in the wild population have been as a result of lead poisoning." She continues: "Because condors have been known to


title: "California condor" content: live past the age of 50, do not breed until they are at least six years old, and raise only one chick every other year, their populations cannot withstand the mortality rates caused by this neurological toxin." According to epidemiologist Terra Kelly: "Until all natural food sources are free from lead-based ammunition, lead poisoning will threaten recovery of naturally sustaining populations of condors in the wild." The article also states: "The military doesn't use lead, and if that isn't a huge message I don't know what is." As the condor's population continued to decline, discussion began about starting a captive


title: "California condor" content: breeding program for the birds. Opponents to this plan argued that the condors had the right to freedom, that capturing all of the condors would change the species' habits forever, and that the cost was too great. However, the project received the approval of the United States government, and the capture of the remaining wild condors was completed on Easter Sunday 1987, when AC-9, the last wild condor, was captured. At that point, there were only 22 condors in existence, all in captivity. The goal of the California Condor Recovery Plan was to establish two geographically separate populations, one in


title: "California condor" content: California and the other in Arizona, each with 150 birds and at least 15 breeding pairs. As the Recovery Program works toward this goal the number of release sites has grown. There are three active release sites in California, one in Arizona and one in Baja California, Mexico. The captive breeding program, led by the San Diego Wild Animal Park and Los Angeles Zoo, and with other participating zoos around the country, including the Oklahoma City Zoo and Botanical Garden, got off to a slow start due to the condor's mating habits. However, utilizing the bird's ability to double clutch,


title: "California condor" content: biologists began removing the first egg from the nest and raising it with puppets, allowing the parents to lay another egg. As the number of condors grew, attention began to focus on releasing some back into the wild. In 1988, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service began a reintroduction experiment involving the release of captive Andean condors into the wild in California. Only females were released, to eliminate the possibility of accidentally introducing a South American species into the United States. The experiment was a success, and all the Andean condors were recaptured and re-released in South America. California


title: "California condor" content: condors were released in 1991 and 1992 in California, and again in 1996 in Arizona near the Grand Canyon. Though the birth rate remains low in the wild, their numbers are increasing steadily through regular releases of captive-reared adolescents. The California condor conservation project may be one of the most expensive species conservation projects in United States history, costing over $35 million, including $20 million in federal and state funding, since World War II. As of 2007 the annual cost for the condor conservation program was around $2.0 million per year. However, nesting milestones have been recently reached by the


title: "California condor" content: reintroduced condors. In 2003, the first nestling fledged in the wild since 1981. In March 2006, a pair of California condors, released by Ventana Wildlife Society, attempted to nest in a hollow tree near Big Sur, California. This was the first time in more than 100 years that a pair of California condors had been seen nesting in Northern California. In October 2010, the wild condor population in its name state of California reached 100 individuals, plus 73 wild condors in Arizona. In November 2011, there were 394 living individuals, 205 of which in the wild and the rest in


title: "California condor" content: the San Diego Wild Animal Park, the Los Angeles Zoo, the Oregon Zoo, and the World Center for Birds of Prey in Boise, Idaho. In May 2012, the number of living individuals had reached 405, with 179 living in captivity. By June 2014, the condor population had reached 439: 225 in the wild and 214 in captivity. Official statistics from the December 2016 USFWS recorded an overall population of 446, of which 276 are wild and 170 are captive. A key milestone was reached in 2015 when more condors were born in the wild than died. As the Recovery Program


title: "California condor" content: achieved milestones, a fifth active release site in Sierra de San Pedro Mártir National Park, Baja California, Mexico, was added to the three release sites in California (Big Sur, Pinnacles National Park and Bitter Creek National Wildlife Refuge) and the Vermilion Cliffs release site in Arizona. In early 2007, a California condor laid an egg in Mexico for the first time since at least the 1930s. The population of the condors has risen due to these wild and also captive nestings. In June, 2016, three chicks that were born in Chapultepec Zoo in Mexico City, were flown to Sierra de


title: "California condor" content: San Pedro Mártir National Park, Baja California, Mexico. In the spring of 2009, a second wild chick was born in the Sierra de San Pedro Mártir National Park and was named "Inyaa" ("Sun" in the Kiliwa language) by local environmentalists. In 2014, Condor #597, also known as "Lupine", was spotted near Pescadero, a coastal community south of San Francisco. Lupine had been routinely seen at Pinnacles National Park after having been released into the wild at Big Sur the previous year. Younger birds of the Central California population are seeking to expand their territory, which could mean that a new


title: "California condor" content: range expansion is possible for the more than 60 condors flying free in central California. Also in 2014 the first successful breeding in Utah was reported. A pair of condors, who were released in Arizona, nested in Zion National Park and the hatching of one chick was confirmed. A crowdsourcing project called Condor Watch (CW) was started on April 14, 2014, hosted by the web portal Zooniverse. Volunteers are asked to examine motion-capture images of California condors associated with release sites managed by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, National Park Service and Ventana Wildlife Society. The tasks on


title: "California condor" content: the website include identifying tagged condors and marking the distance to feeding sources such as animal carcasses. Biologists can then use this data to deduce which birds are at risk of lead poisoning. Condor Watch enables volunteers, or citizen scientists, to participate in active research. The project has up 175,000 images to view and assess—far more than the team could hope to view on their own. Lead scientist Myra Finkelstein believes volunteering is fun because it allows enthusiasts to track the "biographies" of individual condors. Citizen science has long been used in ornithology, for instance in the Audubon Society's Christmas


title: "California condor" content: Bird Count, which began in 1900 and the breeding bird survey which began in 1966. McCaffrey (2005) believes this approach not only directly benefits ongoing projects, but will also help train aspiring ornithologists. Throughout its historic range, the California condor has been a popular subject of mythology and an important symbol to Native Americans. Unusually, this bird takes on different roles in the storytelling of the different tribes. The Wiyot tribe of California say that the condor recreated mankind after Above Old Man wiped humanity out with a flood. However, other tribes, such as California's Mono, viewed the condor as


title: "California condor" content: a destroyer, not a creator. They say that Condor seized humans, cut off their heads, and drained their blood so that it would flood Ground Squirrel's home. Condor then seized Ground Squirrel after he fled, but Ground Squirrel managed to cut off Condor's head when Condor paused to take a drink of the blood. According to the Yokut tribe, the condor sometimes ate the moon, causing the lunar cycle, and his wings caused eclipses. The Chumash tribe of Southern California believed that the condor was once a white bird, but it turned black when it flew too close to a


title: "California condor" content: fire. Condor bones have been found in Native American graves, as have condor feather headdresses. Cave paintings of condors have also been discovered. Some tribes ritually killed condors to make ceremonial clothing out of their feathers. Shamans then danced while wearing these to reach the upper and lower spiritual worlds. Whenever a shaman died, his clothes were said to be cursed, so new clothing had to be made for his successor. Some scientists, such as Noel Snyder, believe that this process of making ceremonial clothing contributed to the condor's decline. California condor The California condor ("Gymnogyps californianus") is a New


title: "Andean condor" content: Andean condor The Andean condor ("Vultur gryphus") is a South American bird in the New World vulture family Cathartidae and is the only member of the genus Vultur. Found in the Andes mountains and adjacent Pacific coasts of western South America, the Andean condor is the largest flying bird in the world by combined measurement of weight and wingspan. It has a maximum wingspan of exceeded only by the wingspans of four seabirds and water birds—the roughly maximum of the wandering albatross, southern royal albatross, great white pelican and Dalmatian pelican. It is a large black vulture with a ruff


title: "Andean condor" content: of white feathers surrounding the base of the neck and, especially in the male, large white patches on the wings. The head and neck are nearly featherless, and are a dull red color, which may flush and therefore change color in response to the bird's emotional state. In the male, there is a wattle on the neck and a large, dark red comb or caruncle on the crown of the head. Unlike most birds of prey, the male is larger than the female. The condor is primarily a scavenger, feeding on carrion. It prefers large carcasses, such as those of


title: "Andean condor" content: deer or cattle. It reaches sexual maturity at five or six years of age and nests at elevations of up to , generally on inaccessible rock ledges. One or two eggs are usually laid. It is one of the world's longest-living birds, with a lifespan of over 70 years in some cases. The Andean condor is a national symbol of Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru and plays an important role in the folklore and mythology of the Andean regions. The Andean condor is considered near threatened by the IUCN. It is threatened by habitat loss and by secondary


title: "Andean condor" content: poisoning from carcasses killed by hunters. Captive breeding programs have been instituted in several countries. The Andean condor was described by Swedish scientist Carl Linnaeus in 1758 in the tenth edition of his "Systema Naturae" and retains its original binomial name of "Vultur gryphus". The Andean condor is sometimes called the Argentinean condor, Bolivian condor, Chilean condor, Colombian condor, Ecuadorian condor, or Peruvian condor after one of the nations to which it is native. The generic term "Vultur" is directly taken from the Latin "vultur" or "voltur", which means "vulture". Its specific epithet is derived from a variant of the


title: "Andean condor" content: Greek word γρυπός ("grupós", "hook-nosed"). The word condor itself is derived from the Quechua "kuntur". The exact taxonomic placement of the Andean condor and the remaining six species of New World vultures remains unclear. Although both are similar in appearance and have similar ecological roles, the New World and Old World vultures evolved from different ancestors in different parts of the world and are not closely related. Just how different the two families are is currently under debate, with some earlier authorities suggesting that the New World vultures are more closely related to storks. More recent authorities maintain their overall


title: "Andean condor" content: position in the order Falconiformes along with the Old World vultures or place them in their own order, Cathartiformes. The South American Classification Committee has removed the New World vultures from Ciconiiformes and instead described them as "incertae sedis", but notes that a move to Falconiformes or Cathartiformes is possible. The Andean condor is the only accepted living species of its genus, "Vultur". Unlike the California condor ("Gymnogyps californianus"), which is known from extensive fossil remains and some additional ones of congeners, the fossil record of the Andean condor recovered to date is scant. Presumed Plio-Pleistocene species of South American


title: "Andean condor" content: condors were later recognized to be not different from the present species, although one known only from a few rather small bones found in a Pliocene deposit of Tarija Department, Bolivia, may have been a smaller palaeosubspecies, "V. gryphus patruus". Although it is on average about seven to eight cm shorter from beak to tail than the California condor, the Andean condor is larger in wingspan, which ranges from . It is also typically heavier, reaching a weight of for males and for females. Overall length can range from . Among standard measurements, the wing chord is , the tail


title: "Andean condor" content: is and the tarsus is . Measurements are usually taken from specimens reared in captivity. The mean weight is , with the males averaging about a kilogram more at , the females a kilogram less at . According to a recently published manual of avian body masses, the species possesses the heaviest average weight for any living flying bird or animal, ahead of competitors such as trumpeter swans ("Cygnus buccinator") and Dalmatian pelicans ("Pelecanus crispus"). However, another resources claims a mean species body mass of for the Andean condor. The Andean condor is the largest living land bird capable of


title: "Andean condor" content: flight if measured in terms of average weight and wingspan, although male bustards of the largest species (far more sexually dimorphic in size) can weigh more at maximum. The mean wingspan is around and the wings have the largest surface area (measured in square centimeters) of any extant bird. Among living bird species, only the great albatrosses and the two largest species of pelican exceed the Andean condor in average and maximal wingspan. The adult plumage is a uniform black, with the exception of a frill of white feathers nearly surrounding the base of the neck and, especially in the


title: "Andean condor" content: male, large patches or bands of white on the wings which do not appear until the completion of the bird's first moulting. The head and neck are red to blackish-red and have few feathers. The head and neck are meticulously kept clean by the bird, and their baldness is an adaptation for hygiene, allowing the skin to be exposed to the sterilizing effects of dehydration and ultraviolet light at high altitudes. The crown of the head is flattened. In the male, the head is crowned with a dark red caruncle or comb, while the skin of his neck lies in


title: "Andean condor" content: folds, forming a wattle. The skin of the head and neck is capable of flushing noticeably in response to emotional state, which serves to communicate between individuals. Juveniles have a grayish-brown general coloration, blackish head and neck skin, and a brown ruff. The middle toe is greatly elongated, and the hind one is only slightly developed, while the talons of all the toes are comparatively straight and blunt. The feet are thus more adapted to walking, and are of little use as weapons or organs of prehension as in birds of prey and Old World vultures. The beak is hooked,


title: "Andean condor" content: and adapted to tear rotting meat. The irises of the male are brown, while those of the female are deep red. The eyelids lack eyelashes. Contrary to the usual rule for sexual dimorphism among birds of prey, the female is smaller than the male. The Andean condor is found in South America in the Andes, including the Santa Marta Mountains. In the north, its range begins in Venezuela and Colombia, where it is extremely rare, then continues south along the Andes in Ecuador, Peru, and Chile, through Bolivia and western Argentina to the Tierra del Fuego. In the early 19th


title: "Andean condor" content: century, the Andean condor bred from western Venezuela to Tierra del Fuego, along the entire chain of the Andes, but its range has been greatly reduced due to human activity. Its habitat is mainly composed of open grasslands and alpine areas up to in elevation. It prefers relatively open, non-forested areas which allow it to spot carrion from the air, such as the páramo or rocky, mountainous areas in general. It occasionally ranges to lowlands in eastern Bolivia and southwestern Brazil, descends to lowland desert areas in Chile and Peru, and is found over southern-beech forests in Patagonia. The condor


title: "Andean condor" content: soars with its wings held horizontally and its primary feathers bent upwards at the tips. The lack of a large sternum to anchor its correspondingly large flight muscles physiologically identifies it as primarily being a soarer. It flaps its wings on rising from the ground, but after attaining a moderate elevation it flaps its wings very rarely, relying on thermals to stay aloft. Charles Darwin commented on having watched them for half an hour without once observing a flap of their wings. It prefers to roost on high places from which it can launch without major wing-flapping effort. Andean condors


title: "Andean condor" content: are often seen soaring near rock cliffs, using the heat thermals to aid them in rising in the air. Like other New World vultures, the Andean condor has the unusual habit of urohidrosis: it often empties its cloaca onto its legs and feet. A cooling effect through evaporation has been proposed as a reason for this behavior, but it does not make any sense in the cold Andean habitat of the bird. Because of this habit, their legs are often streaked with a white buildup of uric acid. There is a well-developed social structure within large groups of condors, with


title: "Andean condor" content: competition to determine a 'pecking order' by body language, competitive play behavior, and vocalizations. Generally, mature males tend to be at the top of the pecking order, with post-dispersal immature males tending to be near the bottom. Sexual maturity and breeding behavior do not appear in the Andean condor until the bird is five or six years of age. It may live to 50 years or more, and it mates for life. During courtship displays, the skin of the male's neck flushes, changing from dull red to bright yellow, and inflates. He approaches the female with neck outstretched, revealing the


title: "Andean condor" content: inflated neck and the chest patch, while hissing, then extends his wings and stands erect while clicking his tongue. Other courtship rituals include hissing and clucking while hopping with wings partially spread, and dancing. The Andean condor prefers to roost and breed at elevations of . Its nest, which consists of a few sticks placed around the eggs, is created on inaccessible ledges of rock. However, in coastal areas of Peru, where there are few cliffs, some nests are simply partially shaded crannies scraped out against boulders on slopes. It deposits one or two bluish-white eggs, weighing about and ranging


title: "Andean condor" content: from in length, during the months of February and March every second year. The egg hatches after 54 to 58 days of incubation by both parents. If the chick or egg is lost or removed, another egg is laid to take its place. Researchers and breeders take advantage of this behavior to double the reproductive rate by taking the first egg away for hand-rearing, causing the parents to lay a second egg, which they are generally allowed to raise. The young are covered with a grayish down until they are almost as large as their parents. They are able to


title: "Andean condor" content: fly after six months, but continue to roost and hunt with their parents until age two, when they are displaced by a new clutch. Healthy adults have no natural predators, but large birds of prey and mammalian predators, like foxes, may take eggs or hatchlings. Predation is relatively uncommon, since the vigilant parents often aggressively displace birds of prey who come near and the rocky, precipitous location of most nests are difficult for mammals to access. The Andean condor is a scavenger, feeding mainly on carrion. Wild condors inhabit large territories, often traveling more than a day in search of


title: "Andean condor" content: carrion. In inland areas, they prefer large carcasses. Naturally, they feed on the largest carcasses available, which can include llamas ("Lama glama"), alpacas ("Vicugna pacos"), rheas ("Rhea ssp."), guanacos ("Lama guanicoe"), deer and armadillos. Wild individuals could acquire extra carotenoids from vegetal matter contained in carcass viscera and fresh vegetation. However, most inland condors now live largely off of domestic animals, which are now more widespread in South America, such as cattle ("Bos primigenius taurus"), horses ("Equus ferus caballus"), donkeys ("Equus africanus a sinus"), mules, sheep ("Ovis aries"), pigs ("Sus scrofa domesticus"), goats ("Capra aegagrus hircus") and dogs ("Canis lupus


title: "Andean condor" content: familiaris"). They also feed on the carcasses of introduced game species such as wild boars ("Sus scrofa"), rabbits ("Oryctolagus cuniculus"), foxes ("Vulpes vulpes") and red deer ("Cervus elaphus"). For condors who live around the coast, the diet consists mainly of beached carcasses of marine mammals, largely cetaceans. They will also raid the nests of smaller birds to feed on the eggs. Andean condors have been observed to do some hunting of small, live animals, such as rodents, birds and rabbits, which (given their lack of powerful, grasping feet or developed hunting technique) they usually kill by jabbing repeatedly with their


title: "Andean condor" content: bill. Coastal areas provide a constant food supply, and in particularly plentiful areas, some Andean condors limit their foraging area to several kilometers of beach-front land. They locate carrion by spotting it or by following other scavengers, such as corvids or other vultures. It may follow New World vultures of the genus "Cathartes"—the turkey vulture ("C. aura"), the lesser yellow-headed vulture ("C. burrovianus"), and the greater yellow-headed vulture ("C. melambrotus")—to carcasses. The "Cathartes" vultures forage by smell, detecting the scent of ethyl mercaptan, a gas produced by the beginnings of decay in dead animals. These smaller vultures cannot rip through


title: "Andean condor" content: the tougher hides of these larger animals with the efficiency of the larger condor, and their interactions are often an example of mutual dependence between species. Black vultures ("Coragyps atratus"), king vultures ("Sarcoramphus papa") and even mammalian scavengers may sometimes track "Cathartes" vultures for carcasses but the condor is invariably dominant among the scavengers in its range. Andean condors are intermittent eaters in the wild, often going for a few days without eating, then gorging themselves on several pounds at once, sometimes to the point of being unable to lift off the ground. Because its feet and talons are not


title: "Andean condor" content: adapted to grasping, it must feed while on the ground. Like other carrion-feeders, it plays an important role in its ecosystem by disposing of carrion which would otherwise be a breeding ground for disease. Being a slowly-maturing bird with no known natural predators in adulthood, an Andean condor is a long-lived bird. Longevity and mortality rates are not known to have been extensively studied in the wild. Some estimations of lifespans of wild birds has exceeded 50 years. In 1983, the Guinness Book of World Records considered the longest-lived bird of any species with a confirmed lifespan was an Andean


title: "Andean condor" content: condor that died after surviving 72 years in captivity, having been captured from the wild as a juvenile of undetermined age. Several species of parrot have been reported to live for perhaps over 100 years, but these (at least in 1983) were not considered authenticated. Another early captive-held specimen of condor reportedly lived for 71 years. However, these lifespans have been exceeded by a male, nicknamed "Thaao", that was kept Beardsley Zoo in Connecticut. Thaao was born in captivity in 1930 and died on January 26, 2010, making him 79 years of age. This would be the greatest verified age


title: "Andean condor" content: ever known for a bird. The Andean condor is considered near threatened by the IUCN. It was first placed on the United States Endangered Species list in 1970, a status which is assigned to an animal that is in danger of extinction throughout all or a significant portion of its range. Threats to its population include loss of habitat needed for foraging, secondary poisoning from animals killed by hunters and persecution. It is threatened mainly in the northern area of its range, and is extremely rare in Venezuela and Colombia, where it has undergone considerable declines in recent years. Because


title: "Andean condor" content: it is adapted to very low mortality and has correspondingly low reproductive rates, it is extremely vulnerable to human persecution, most of which stems from the fact that it is perceived as a threat by farmers due to alleged attacks on livestock. Education programs have been implemented by conservationists to dispel this misconception. Reintroduction programs using captive-bred Andean condors, which release birds hatched in North American zoos into the wild to bolster populations, have been introduced in Argentina, Venezuela, and Colombia. The first captive-bred Andean condors were released into the wild in 1989. When raising condors, human contact is minimal;


title: "Andean condor" content: chicks are fed with glove puppets which resemble adult Andean condors in order to prevent the chicks from imprinting on humans, which would endanger them upon release as they would not be wary of humans. The condors are kept in aviaries for three months prior to release, where they acclimatize to an environment similar to that which they will be released in. Released condors are tracked by satellite in order to observe their movements and to monitor whether they are still alive. In response to the capture of all the wild individuals of the California condor, in 1988 the US


title: "Andean condor" content: Fish and Wildlife Service began a reintroduction experiment involving the release of captive Andean condors into the wild in California. Only females were released to prevent it becoming an invasive species. The experiment was a success, and all the Andean condors were recaptured and re-released in South America before the reintroduction of the California condors took place. In June 2014, local authorities of the Ancasmarca region rescued two Andean condors that were caged and displayed in a local market as an attraction for tourists. The Andean condor is a national symbol of Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuelan


title: "Andean condor" content: Andes states. It is the national bird of Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, and Ecuador. It plays an important role in the folklore and mythology of the South American Andean regions, and has been represented in Andean art from c. 2500 BCE onward, and they are a part of indigenous Andean religions. In Andean mythology, the Andean condor was associated with the sun deity, and was believed to be the ruler of the upper world. The Andean condor is considered a symbol of power and health by many Andean cultures, and it was believed that the bones and organs of the Andean


title: "Andean condor" content: condor possessed medicinal powers, sometimes leading to the hunting and killing of condors to obtain its bones and organs. In some versions of Peruvian bullfighting, a condor is tied to the back of a bull, where it pecks at the animal as bullfighters fight it. The condor generally survives and is set free. In Peru, they are occasionally shot, but more often revered and used for ceremonial purposes. The Yawar Fiesta is a celebration, the pinnacle of which is the tying of an Andean condor to the back of a bull, allowing the condor to kill the bull with its


title: "Andean condor" content: talons before being released. This ceremony is a symbolic representation of the power of the Andean peoples (the condor) over the Spanish (the bull). There is also a ceremony known as the "arranque del condor" in which a live Andean condor is suspended from a frame and is punched to death by horsemen as they ride by. Condorito is a Chilean comic book and comic strip that features an anthropomorphic condor living in a fictitious town named Pelotillehue, a typical small Chilean provincial town. He is meant to be a representation of the Chilean people. The Andean condor is a


title: "Andean condor" content: popular figure on stamps in many countries, appearing on one for Ecuador in 1958, Argentina in 1960, Peru in 1973, Bolivia in 1985, Colombia in 1992, Chile in 2001, and Venezuela in 2004. It has also appeared on the coins and banknotes of Colombia and Chile. The condor is featured in several coats of arms of Andean countries as a symbol of Andes mountains. The Andean condor is depicted on the logo of Avianca and Aerolineas Argentinas, which are two of the largest airlines in South America. Andean condor The Andean condor ("Vultur gryphus") is a South American bird in


title: "Regional lockout" content: U is also region-locked. The Nintendo Switch is region-free. The Nintendo eShop is also region-free, meaning the user can download content from other regions. The PlayStation and PlayStation 2 consoles are region-locked. All PlayStation 3 games, except for two, are region free. Even though publishers could choose to region-lock specific games based on a mechanism that allows for the game to query the model of the PS3, none did so during the first six years after the launch of PS3. The first game to be region-locked on the PS3 is "Persona 4 Arena"; publisher Atlus declined to reverse its decision


title: "Regional lockout" content: despite owning a US PS3, and can only pay for a game with a Japanese PSN gift card or Japanese credit card. However, with a few rare exceptions, notably "Joysound Dive", downloaded content from each PSN store are also region free, as are PSOne and PS2 classics offered on the store. Although PlayStation Portable has no region locking for UMD games; UMD movies are locked by region. However, Sony has confirmed that it is possible to implement region-locking on the PSP, and the firmware will disable features based on region. For example, Asian region PSPs will not display the "Extras"


title: "Music of Illinois" content: in turn hailed from Belleville, Illinois. Lucky Boys Confusion is also from Illinois, in Downers Grove and Naperville. Also other bands that come from the Chicago area are The Hush Sound from Dupage County, The Academy Is... from Hoffman Estates and The Plain White T's who are also from Dupage County. The Plain White T's had a #1 Billboard Hot 100 hit with "Hey There Delilah" in 2007. Doug Pinnick, vocalist and bassist of the hard rock/progressive rock band King's X was from Joliet. The band Fall Out Boy also originated from the Chicago area. Although not always Alternative Rock


title: NAMD content: adding many features and scaling beyond 500,000 processor cores. NAMD has an interface to quantum chemistry packages ORCA and MOPAC, as well as a scripted interface to many other quantum packages. Together with Visual Molecular Dynamics (VMD) and QwikMD, NAMD’s interface provides access to hybrid QM/MM simulations in an integrated, comprehensive, customizable, and easy-to-use suite. NAMD is available as freeware for non-commercial use by individuals, academic institutions, and corporations for in-house business uses. NAMD Nanoscale Molecular Dynamics (NAMD, formerly Not Another Molecular Dynamics Program) is computer software for molecular dynamics simulation, written using the Charm++ parallel programming model. It is


title: "Iona College (New York)" content: the student is at the core of everything we do." In November 2015, Robert LaPenta, Iona alumnus, gave the college with a $15 million gift to add to and renovate the School of Business facility, Hagan Hall. Mr. LaPenta later added $2.5 million to the pledge as part of a challenge gift. The Hynes Institute for Entrepreneurship & Innovation has been established in 2017 thanks to the $15 million gift to Iona from alumnus and Trustee Chairman James Hynes and his wife, Anne Marie. Iona’s study abroad program offers 14 different cultural immersion opportunities: Academic lecture halls at Iona College


title: "Superior court" content: record. The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council is the final forum for several independent Commonwealth nations as well as all Overseas Territories of the United Kingdom and Crown Dependencies, and thus is the superior court in its capacity as the final appellate court of the respective legal systems. In a number of jurisdictions in the United States, the Superior Court is a state trial court of general jurisdiction with power to hear and decide any civil or criminal action which is not specially designated to be heard in some other courts. California, Connecticut, Washington, Maine, the District of Columbia,


title: "Biblical cosmology" content: not entirely clear whether they are identical with Sea or are Sea's helpers). The "bronze sea" which stood in the forecourt of the Temple in Jerusalem probably corresponds to the "sea" in Babylonian temples, representing the "apsu", the cosmic ocean. In the New Testament Jesus' conquest of the stormy sea shows the conquering deity overwhelming the forces of chaos: a mere word of command from the Son of God stills the foe (Mark 4:35-41), who then tramples over his enemy, (Jesus walking on water - Mark 6:45, 47-51). In Revelation, where the Archangel Michael expels the dragon (Satan) from heaven


title: "Estes Kefauver" content: in 1952. After his 1956 defeat, Kefauver was considered the front-runner for the 1960 Democratic nomination. In an attempt to gain more public exposure, Kefauver capitalized on a nascent public campaign to restrict the sale of switchblade knives at the federal level by introducing legislation in 1957 to ban the sale or possession of such knives. The senator timed his hearings on the legislation to coincide with a series of lurid articles in the "Saturday Evening Post" and other periodicals of the day on the use of switchblades by juvenile delinquents and gangs. At each hearing the senator would display


title: "Clay tablet" content: pictorial concept, a logogram, as the meaning of the word. Early writing also began in Ancient Egypt using hieroglyphs. Early hieroglyphs and some of the modern Chinese characters are other examples of pictographs. The Sumerians later shifted their writing to Cuneiform, defined as "Wedge writing" in Latin, which added phonetic symbols, syllabograms. Text on clay tablets took the forms of myths, fables, essays, hymns, proverbs, epic poetry, laws, plants, and animals. What these clay tablets allowed was for individuals to record who and what was significant. An example of these great stories was The Story of Gilgamesh. This story would


title: "Music of North Carolina" content: City when he was four. Other jazz musicians from North Carolina include guitarist Tal Farlow (b. Greensboro, NC, 6/7/21), considered one of the top players during the 1950s. Hard-bop saxophonists Lou Donaldson (b. Badin, NC, 11/1/26) and Tina Brooks (b. Fayetteville, NC, 6/7/32) were originally North Carolinians. Hard-bop trumpeter Woody Shaw (b. Laurinburg, NC, 12/24/44), pianist Billy Taylor (b. Greenville, NC, 7/24/21), saxophonist and flautist Harold Vick (b. Rocky Mount, NC, April 3, 1936), pianist and singer dubbed the "High Priestess of Soul" Dr. Nina Simone (b. Tryon, NC, 2/21/33. d. 2003), alto saxophonist Tab Smith (b. Kinston, NC, 1/11/1909),


title: "Music of North Carolina" content: this genre to connect communities through a shared culture. A common practice in folk music is to bring an artist's personal dialect into the respective song or ballad. Plenty of times, specific words and phrases will be altered depending on from which region the Appalachian folk music singer performed. To focus on a specific song to give a more clear example, the folk ballad Black Jack Davy has many different variations, solely based on how the song was transmitted from one region of North Carolina to the next. As many different variations of this ballad have been sung, many of


title: "The Faculty" content: invasion is now public knowledge. In 1990, David Wechter and Bruce Kimmel wrote their first draft of the script and sent it out, but there were no buyers. It wasn't until after the success of "Scream" that Miramax bought the script and rushed it into production. Bob Weinstein and Harvey Weinstein brought in Kevin Williamson to do rewrites, keeping the basic story, but rewriting the dialogue and adding new characters to make it more "hip". Originally, Williamson was set to direct the film, but he chose not to so he could direct his self-penned script "Teaching Mrs. Tingle". The Weinsteins


title: "Pan-American Highway (South America)" content: travels 26 km to the town of La Paila, where it crosses Colombia Route 25. At this junction, the two routes merge and become a toll road for 61 km from that point to Buga. At Buga, Route 40 splits west toward the city of Buenaventura and the Pacific Ocean; the Pan-American Highway continues south on Route 25 for another 42 km until arriving near Palmira. From Palmira, the highway continues southwest for 23 km, where it reaches the large city of Cali. Santiago de Cali, the city's complete name, is the capital of the Valle del Cauca department. It


title: "Moto Guzzi" content: buyers. The company has begun making limited collectors' editions of Guzzi originals. The following is a list of key people associated with Moto Guzzi since its launch. Founders: Engineers: Racers: "(Cardano Reattivo Compatto)": Above a certain power level the competing forces of drive-shaft arrangements can severely disrupt the suspension of a motorcycle (especially at application of throttle), a phenomenon called "shaft jacking". Moto Guzzi introduced its first anti-jacking system with the Daytona in 1993 and evolved that design though the 2005 V11 Sport. Guzzi later introduced their CARC system, emulating the BMW Paralever design and serving the same function. Kawasaki


title: "American coot" content: American coot The American coot ("Fulica americana"), also known as a mud hen, is a bird of the family Rallidae. Though commonly mistaken for ducks, American coots are only distantly related to ducks, belonging to a separate order. Unlike the webbed feet of ducks, coots have broad, lobed scales on their lower legs and toes that fold back with each step in order to facilitate walking on dry land. Coots live near water, typically inhabiting wetlands and open water bodies in North America. Groups of coots are called covers or rafts. The oldest known coot lived to be 22 years


title: "American coot" content: old. The American coot is a migratory bird that occupies most of North America. It lives in the Pacific and southwestern United States and Mexico year-round and occupies more northeastern regions during the summer breeding season. In the winter they can be found as far south as Panama. Coots generally build floating nests and lay 8–12 eggs per clutch. Females and males have similar appearances, but they can be distinguished during aggressive displays by the larger ruff (head plumage) on the male. American coots eat primarily algae and other aquatic plants but also animals (both vertebrates and invertebrates) when available.


title: "American coot" content: The American coot is listed as “Least Concern” under the IUCN conservation ratings. Hunters generally avoid killing American coots because their meat is not as sought after as that of ducks. Much research has been done on the breeding habits of American coots. Studies have found that mothers will preferentially feed offspring with the brightest plume feathers, a characteristic known as chick ornaments. American coots are also susceptible to conspecific brood parasitism and have evolved mechanisms to identify which offspring are theirs and which are from parasitic females. The American coot was first described by Johann Friedrich Gmelin in 1789.


title: "American coot" content: A member of the family Rallidae, it has three subspecies: "Fulica americana alai", "F. a. caribaea", and "F. a. ardesiaca". These subspecies, however, are sometimes considered to be their own separate species. Including these 'subspecies', there are 11 members of the genus Fulica distributed across the globe. Coot fossils from the Middle Pleistocene of California have been described as "Fulica hesterna" but cannot be separated from the present-day American coot. However, the Pleistocene coot "Fulica shufeldti" (formerly "F. minor"), famously known as part of the Fossil Lake fauna, quite possibly was a paleosubspecies of the American coot (as "Fulica americana


title: "American coot" content: shufeldti") as they only differed marginally in size and proportions from living birds. Thus, it seems that the modern-type American coots evolved during the mid-late Pleistocene, a few hundred thousand years ago. The American coot's genus name, "Fulica", is a direct borrowing of the Latin word for "coot". The specific epithet "americana" means "America". The American coot measures in length and across the wings. Adults have a short, thick, white bill and white frontal shield, which usually has a reddish-brown spot near the top of the bill between the eyes. Males and females look alike, but females are smaller. Body


title: "American coot" content: mass in females ranges from and in males from . Juvenile birds have olive-brown crowns and a gray body. They become adult-colored around 4 months of age. The American coot has a variety of repeated calls and sounds. Male and female coots make different types of calls to similar situations. Male alarm calls are "puhlk" while female alarm calls are "poonk". Also, stressed males go "puhk-cowah" or "pow-ur" while females call "cooah". American coots are found near water reed-ringed lakes and ponds, open marshes, and sluggish rivers. They prefer freshwater environments but may temporarily live in saltwater environments during the


title: "American coot" content: winter months. The American coot's breeding habitat extends from marshes in southern Quebec to the Pacific coast of North America and as far south as northern South America. Birds from temperate North America east of the Rocky Mountains migrate to the southern United States and southern British Columbia. It is often a year-round resident where water remains open in winter. The number of birds that stay year-round near the northern limit of the species' range seems to be increasing. Autumn migration occurs from August to December, with males and non-breeders moving south before the females and juveniles. Spring migration to


title: "American coot" content: breeding ranges occurs from late February to mid-May, with males and older birds moving North first. There has been evidence of birds travelling as far north as Greenland and Iceland. Coots resident in the Caribbean and Greater and Lesser Antilles lack the red portion of the frontal shield, and were previously believed to be a distinct species, the Caribbean coot ("Fulica caribaea"). In 2016, due to research showing that the only distinguishing characteristic between American and Caribbean coots, the presence or absence of red in the frontal shield, was not distinct to Caribbean coots as some American coots, in locations


title: "American coot" content: where vagrancy from Caribbean populations was highly unlikely, had fully white shields and, therefore, there was no way to reliably distinguish the species, and there was no evidence of Caribbean and American coots engaging in assortative mating, the American Ornithological Society lumped the Caribbean coot as simply a regional variation of the American coot. The American coot is a highly gregarious species, particularly in the winter, when its flocks can number in the thousands. When swimming on the water surface, American coots exhibit a variety of interesting collective formations, including single-file lines, high density synchronized swimming and rotational dynamics, broad


title: "American coot" content: arcing formations, and sequential take-off dynamics. The American coot can dive for food but can also forage and scavenge on land. Their principal source of food is aquatic vegetation, especially algae. Yet they are omnivorous, also eating arthropods, fish, and other aquatic animals. During breeding season, coots are more likely to eat aquatic insects and mollusks—which constitute the majority of a chick's diet. The coot mating season occurs during May and June. Coot mate pairings are monogamous throughout their life, given they have a suitable territory. A typical reproductive cycle involves multiple stages: pairing, nesting, copulation, egg deposition, incubation, and


title: "American coot" content: hatching. The American coot typically has long courtship periods. This courtship period is characterized by billing, bowing, and nibbling. Males generally initiate billing, which is the touching of bills between individuals. As the pair bond becomes more evident, both males and females will initiate billing only with each other and not other males or females. After a pair bond is cemented, the mating pair looks for a territory to build a nest in. A pair bond becomes permanent when a nesting territory is secured. Copulation behavior among coot pairs always falls under the same general pattern. First the male chases


title: "American coot" content: the female. Then, the female moves to the display platform and squats with her head under the water. The male then mounts the female, using his claws and wings to balance on the female's back while the she brings her head above the water. Sexual intercourse usually takes no longer than two seconds. The American coot is a prolific builder and will create multiple structures during a single breeding season. It nests in well-concealed locations in tall reeds. There are three general types of structures: display platforms, egg nests and brood nests. Since American coots build on the water, their


title: "American coot" content: structures disintegrate easily and have short life spans. Egg and brood nests are actually elaborate rafts, and must be constantly added to in order to stay afloat. Females typically do the most work while building. Females deposit one egg a day until the clutch is complete. Eggs are usually deposited between sunset and midnight. Typically, early season and first clutches average two more eggs than second nestings and late season clutches. Early season nests see an average of 9.0 eggs per clutch while late clutches see an average of 6.4 eggs per clutch. There is an inverse relationship between egg


title: "American coot" content: weights and laying sequence, wherein earlier eggs are larger than eggs laid later in the sequence. It is possible to induce a female coot to lay more eggs than normal by either removing all or part of her clutch. Sometimes, a female may abandon the clutch if enough eggs are removed. Coots, however, do not respond to experimental addition of eggs by laying fewer eggs. The American coot is a persistent re-nester, and will replace lost clutches with new ones within two days of clutch-loss during deposition. One study showed that 68% of destroyed clutches are eventually replaced. Re-nested clutches


title: "American coot" content: are typically smaller than original clutches by one or two eggs, but this could be attributed to differences in time and habitat quality instead of food or nutrient reserves and availability. Younger females reproduce later in the season and produce smaller eggs than older females. Their offspring are also smaller. However, there is no difference in clutch size between older and younger females as there is in other avian species. Incubation start time in the American coot is variable, and can begin anywhere from the deposition of the first egg to after the clutch is fully deposited. Starting incubation before


title: "American coot" content: the entire clutch has been laid is an uncommon practice among birds. Once incubation starts it continues without interruption. Male and female coots share incubation responsibility, but males do most of the work during the 21-day incubation period. Females will begin to re-nest clutches in an average of six days if clutches are destroyed during incubation. Hatch order usually follows the same sequence as laying order. Regardless of clutch size, eight is the typical maximum size of a brood. Egg desertion is a frequent occurrence among coots because females will often deposit more than eight eggs. Brood size limits incubation


title: "American coot" content: time, and when a certain number of chicks have hatched the remaining eggs are abandoned. The mechanism for egg abandonment has not yet been discovered. Food resource constraints may limit the number of eggs parents let hatch, or the remaining eggs may not provide enough visual or tactile stimulation to elicit incubation behavior. An American coot can be forced to hatch more eggs than are normally laid. These additional offspring, however, suffer higher mortality rates due to inadequacy in brooding or feeding ability. Hormones that are passed down from the mother into the egg affect offspring growth, behavior, and social


title: "American coot" content: interactions. These nongenetic contributions by the mother are known as maternal effects. In the American coot, two levels of androgen and testosterone variation have been discovered—within-clutch and among-clutch variation. Within the same clutch, eggs laid earlier in the sequence have higher testosterone levels than eggs laid later in the sequence. Females that lay three clutches deposit more androgens into their yolks than females who lay only one or two clutches. The American coot has a mixed reproductive strategy, and conspecific brood parasitism is a common alternative reproductive method. In one 4-year study, researchers found that 40% of nests were parasitized,


title: "American coot" content: and that 13% of all eggs were laid by females in nests that were not their own. Increasing reproductive success under social and ecological constraints is the primary reason for brood parasitism. Floater females without territories or nests use brood parasitism as their primary method of reproduction, if they breed at all. Other females may engage in brood parasitism if their partially complete clutches are destroyed. Conspecific brood parasitic behavior is most common among females trying to increase their total number of offspring. Food supply is the limiting factor to chick survival and starvation is the most common cause of


title: "American coot" content: chick morbidity. Parasitic females bypass the parental care constraint of feeding by laying additional parasitic eggs in addition to their normal nest. When a parasitic female lays her egg in a host female’s nest, the host female experiences a deposition rate of two eggs per day. Host females may recognize parasitic eggs when the egg deposition pattern deviates from the traditional one egg per day pattern. The occurrence of brood parasitism may be influenced by the body size of the potential parasitic female relative to the potential host female. Parasitic females are generally larger than their host counterparts, but on


title: "American coot" content: average, there is no size difference between the parasite and the host. The American coot, unlike other parasitized species, has the ability to recognize and reject conspecific parasitic chicks from their brood. Parents aggressively reject parasite chicks by pecking them vigorously, drowning them, preventing them from entering the nest, etc. They learn to recognize their own chicks by imprinting on cues from the first chick that hatches. The first-hatched chick is a reference to which parents discriminate between later-hatched chicks. Chicks that do not match the imprinted cues are then recognized as parasite chicks and are rejected. Chick recognition reduces


title: "American coot" content: the costs associated with parasitism, and coots are one of only three bird species in which this behavior has evolved. This is because hatching order is predictable in parasitized coots—host eggs will reliably hatch before parasite eggs. In other species where hatching order is not as reliable, there is a risk of misimprinting on a parasite chick first and then rejecting their own chicks. In these species, the cost of accidentally misimprinting is greater than the benefits of rejecting parasite chicks. The first evidence for parental selection of exaggerated, ornamental traits in offspring was found in American coots. Black American


title: "American coot" content: coot chicks have conspicuously orange-tipped ornamental plumes covering the front half of their body that are known as “chick ornaments” that eventually get bleached out after six days. This brightly colored, exaggerated trait makes coot chicks more susceptible to predation and does not aid in thermoregulation, but remains selected for by parental choice. These plumes are not necessary for chick viability, but increased chick ornamentation increases the likelihood that a chick will be chosen as a favorite by the parents. Experimental manipulation of chick ornamentation by clipping the bright plumes has shown that parents prefer ornamented chicks over non-ornamented ones.


title: "American coot" content: The American coot is fairly aggressive in defense of its eggs and, in combination with their protected nesting habitat, undoubtedly helps reduce losses of eggs and young to all but the most determined and effective predators. American crows, black-billed magpies and Forster's tern can sometime take eggs. Mammalian predators (including red foxes, coyotes, skunks and raccoons) are even less likely to predate coot nests, though nests are regularly destroyed in usurpation by muskrats. Conversely, the bold behavior of immature and adult coots leads to them falling prey with relative regularity once out of the breeding season. Regular, non-nesting-season predators include


title: "American coot" content: great horned owls, northern harriers, bald eagles, golden eagles, American alligators, bobcats, great black-backed and California gulls. In fact, coots may locally comprise more than 80% of the bald eagle diet. On the Louisiana coast, the Cajun word for coot is pouldeau, from French for "coot", "poule d'eau" – literally "water hen". Coot can be used for cooking; it is somewhat popular in Cajun cuisine, for instance as an ingredient for gumbos cooked at home by duck hunters. The bird is the mascot of the Toledo Mud Hens Minor League Baseball team. The American coot is listed under "least concern"


title: "American coot" content: by the IUCN Red List of Endangered Species. They are common and widespread, and are sometimes even considered a pest. They are rarely the targets of hunters since their meat is not considered to be as good as that of ducks; although some are shot for sport, particularly in the southeastern United States. Because they are found in wetlands, scientists use them to monitor toxin levels and pollution problems in these environments. American coot The American coot ("Fulica americana"), also known as a mud hen, is a bird of the family Rallidae. Though commonly mistaken for ducks, American coots are


title: "Sora (bird)" content: Sora (bird) The sora ("Porzana carolina") is a small waterbird of the family Rallidae, sometimes also referred to as the sora rail or sora crake. The genus name "Porzana" is derived from Venetian terms for small rails, and Carolina refers to the Carolina Colony. "Sora" is probably taken from a Native American language. Adult soras are long, with dark-marked brown upperparts, a blue-grey face and underparts, and black and white barring on the flanks. They have a short thick yellow bill, with black markings on the face at the base of the bill and on the throat. Sexes are similar,


title: "Sora (bird)" content: but young soras lack the black facial markings and have a whitish face and buff breast. They weigh about . The sora's breeding habitat is marshes throughout much of North America. They nest in a well-concealed location in dense vegetation. The female usually lays 10 to 12 eggs, sometimes as many as 18, in a cup built from marsh vegetation. The eggs do not all hatch together. Both parents incubate and feed the young, who leave the nest soon after they hatch and are able to fly within a month. They migrate to the southern United States and northern South


title: "Sora (bird)" content: America. Sora is a very rare vagrant to western Europe, where it can be confused with spotted crake. However, the latter species always has spotting on the breast. a streaked crown stripe, and a different wing pattern. Soras forage while walking or swimming. They are omnivores, eating seeds, insects and snails. Although soras are more often heard than seen, they are sometimes seen walking near open water. They are fairly common, despite a decrease in suitable habitat in recent times. The call is a slow whistled "ker-whee", or a descending whinny. The use of call broadcasts greatly increases the chances


title: "Sora (bird)" content: of hearing a sora. Call broadcasts can also increase the chances of seeing a sora, as they will often investigate the source of the call. Soras occur throughout most of North America. Soras breed from Nova Scotia northwest to southern Yukon and Northwest Territories, south to California, Arizona, and New Mexico and northeast to Pennsylvania and New England. Sora wintering grounds include the northern portions of South America, including Ecuador, Columbia, and Venezuela, north through Central America and Mexico to southern California in the West and coastal regions of the Southeast. From southern Kansas south to northern and eastern Texas


title: "Sora (bird)" content: and east through the inland areas of the southeastern United States, soras are typically only observed during migration in the spring and fall. In a few areas of the western United States, including central California and areas of Arizona and New Mexico, soras may occur year-round. Soras are commonly reported in plant communities dominated by cattails ("Typha" spp.), sedges ("Carex" spp.), bulrushes ("Scirpus" spp.), smartweeds ("Polygonum" spp.), rushes ("Juncus" spp.), rice cutgrass ("Leersia oryzoides"), and barnyard grasses ("Echinochloa" spp.). Outside of wetlands, soras are most often reported in cultivated areas during migration or in the postbreeding period. For instance, a


title: "Sora (bird)" content: sora was observed from marshland in a cultivated field in Iowa in the middle of August. A male sora was observed less than from a large wetland in a soybean ("Glycine max") field in northwestern Iowa during the postbreeding period. From early June to mid-July, soras were observed on farms in Saskatchewan sown mainly with wheat ("Triticum aestivum"). Soras have also been reported in flooded wooded areas. In western New York, soras occurred during the breeding season on a study site where 26% of the area was categorized as "flooded timber," and 5% was classed as "scrub/shrub marsh". In eastern


title: "Sora (bird)" content: and central Maine, an average of 2.1 soras was observed in wooded swamps per 100 hours of observation during the breeding season. On a nonbreeding (August–April) site in southwestern Arizona, soras were found to use a "mixed shrub community" more than expected based on its availability. Soras were observed at low abundances on a site with douglas-fir ("Pseudotsuga menziesii"), ponderosa pine ("Pinus ponderosa"), and trembling aspen ("Populus tremuloides") in British Columbia. Sora's northern migration occurs in spring, primarily in April and May. For instance, in east-central Kansas significantly (p<0.05) more soras were detected from 24 April to 7 May than


title: "Sora (bird)" content: the 2-week periods before or after. In southeast Missouri, soras were observed from 25 March to 6 May. Soras were first detected in April to early May in Colorado, Iowa, and Minnesota. In a summary of the first detections of soras in Minnesota, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan, all occurred in April. Soras depart their breeding grounds as early as July and as late as October. Soras were observed returning to wintering grounds in Arizona as early as late July. Although local movements may obscure migration occurring in July, most migration occurred in August and September in Colorado. In northern Ohio, sora


title: "Sora (bird)" content: abundance was increased in late August and September by migrating individuals. In southeastern Missouri, soras were observed from 5 September to 27 October. Soras have been observed in Manitoba and Saskatchewan as late as October. Although sora nesting activities have been observed from late April through early August, the peak nesting period typically occurs from May to early July. In New York, nesting was initiated in late April. A nest search and literature review study of soras in Colorado reports a clutch initiated in early August. However, mean clutch initiation dates occurred in May and June in regions across the


title: "Sora (bird)" content: state. Studies from northern Ohio, North Dakota, and Alberta report nesting from May to July. In a review, sora nests with eggs were recorded from early May to early July in Indiana. Sora females begin construction of saucer-shaped nests on the ground or on a platform over shallow water at the start of egg laying. Clutch sizes typically range from 8 to 13 eggs, although clutch sizes of up to 16 have been reported. Both parents incubate the eggs. Incubation lasts approximately 19 days, although a wide range of incubation periods has been reported in the literature. Eggs hatch over


title: "Sora (bird)" content: a span of 2 to 13 days. Nestlings are precocial and are capable of walking and swimming short distances (< ) by the end of their first day. Young soras are independent by about 4 weeks of age. Soras brood once per season. Some late broods may be second nesting attempts, but there is only one report in the literature of a second brood attempt after a successful nest. For information on breeding behavior of soras, see. For information on conspecific nest parasitism and egg discrimination in soras see. Sora nest success rates vary across locations and years. In the


title: "Sora (bird)" content: literature addressing sora apparent nest success, the proportions of successful nests varied from 0.61 in Michigan to 0.833 in Minnesota. In western New York, the nest success rate of 6 sora nests was 0.43, and the daily nest success rate was 0.97. Using data from the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology's nest record program, nesting success rate of soras in North America was estimated as 0.529 over a 28-day period (n=108). On a site in Alberta, 80.6% of eggs successfully hatched, while the following year only 59.6% of eggs hatched. The authors conclude that diminished water level interacting with predators and


title: "Sora (bird)" content: trampling by cattle resulted in decreased hatching success. During late summer, soras are flightless for a period during their post-nuptial molt. The Sora is common across North America, naturally occurring in 49 US states (the exception being Hawaii), all 10 Canadian provinces and 2 Canadian territories. Outside of US/Canada, the species is found throughout Central America and northern South America. The species has been recorded as a vagrant in Iceland, Great Britain, Portugal, and at Lake Titicaca. The size of an individual Sora's home range varies. Sora brood-rearing home ranges in northwestern Iowa averaged . In Arizona, sora home range


title: "Sora (bird)" content: size varied from in the early breeding season to over in the postbreeding season. These seasonal differences in sora home range size were not significant (p>0.05). Few data are available on the survival of soras. Radio-marked soras in Arizona had a nonbreeding survival probability of 0.308. The authors suggest the low survival rate may be due to increased mortality of radio-marked birds. Likely causes of mortality are predation and human-caused sources such as road kill. Water and emergent vegetation are important sora habitat characteristics. Soras use areas with a wide range of water depths. They are often observed in water


title: "Sora (bird)" content: less than deep, although the average water depth of sora heavy-use areas in Arizona was . In northwestern Iowa, average water depth in sora territories was , which was significantly (p<0.025) more shallow than water depths at random locations in the marsh. Sora nesting sites occurred in shallower water than random sites in western New York. Average water depths reported at nest sites range from for 4 sora nests in Colorado to nearly for sora nests in western New York. In areas of deep water, soras typically wade on mats of floating vegetation. Water level fluctuations may result in nest


title: "Sora (bird)" content: abandonment. For example, at a site in Colorado where water level increased more than , a sora nest with 7 eggs was abandoned. In Alberta, soras nested in more vegetation types during a drought year, most likely due to substantially reduced water levels in the vegetation used the previous year. Soras use areas with shallower water in fall than in spring. Soras typically avoid open water. There is a significant (p≤0.05) negative relationship between area of open water and sora use of wetlands in Maine and sora relative abundance in Saskatchewan. In western New York, sora nesting sites had a


title: "Sora (bird)" content: lower percentage of open water than random sites, and in Arizona soras used open water areas less than their availability. Sora nesting sites had larger percentage of emergent vegetation than random sites in marshes of western New York. Sora numbers in wetlands of northeastern North Dakota were significantly (p<0.05) positively correlated (r=0.45) with hectares of live emergent vegetation. In east and central Maine, wetlands used by soras had significantly (p=0.01) greater area of emergent vegetation than unused wetlands. Density of emergent vegetation in sora habitat varies. Reported density of emergent vegetation ranges from an average of 121.9 stems/m in sora


title: "Sora (bird)" content: territories in northwestern Iowa to 333 stems/m on sites in northeastern Missouri used during fall migration. In western New York, cover was greater than 70% at 95% of sora nests. In addition, nesting sites had more horizontal cover at 20 inches (0.5 m) above water level than random sites. However, average stem density on sora territories was not significantly (p>0.05) different from random sites in northwestern Iowa. Height of emergent vegetation in sora habitat also varies. It ranged from in the spring after a winter disturbance in northwestern Iowa to in areas heavily used by soras in Arizona. In marshes


title: "Sora (bird)" content: of western New York, average vegetation height at sora nesting sites was shorter than at random locations. However, the average height of emergent vegetation in sora territories in northeastern Iowa was not significantly (p>0.05) different from the height of vegetation in random plots. In Arizona, both cover and height of vegetation used by soras varied with seasons. Conway suggested the differences likely reflected the varied diet of the sora. The availability of habitat in different seasons is another possible source of seasonal differences in sora habitat. Extent of woody vegetation surrounding South Dakota wetlands was not significantly (p=0.6) associated with


title: "Sora (bird)" content: sora occurrence. However, in marshes of western New York, there was a significant (p=0.041) negative relationship between percent flooded timber on a site and sora relative abundance. Soras may prefer some cover types. In Arizona, 65.3% of sora use was in southern cattail ("Typha domingensis"), although it comprised only 16.5% of the vegetation. Bulrushes and a mixed-shrub community were also used more than their availability, while saltcedar ("Tamarix chinensis") and arrowweed ("Pluchea sericea") were avoided. A literature review notes sora avoidance of purple loosestrife ("Lythrum salicaria")-dominated sites. In east and central Maine, wetlands used by soras had significantly (p=0.05) more


title: "Sora (bird)" content: ericaceous vegetation, such as leatherleaves ("Chamaedaphne" spp.), sweetgales ("Myrica" spp.), and laurels ("Kalmia" spp.). In marshes of northwestern Iowa, broadleaf arrowhead ("Sagittaria latifolia") occurred in sora territories significantly (p<0.01) more often than at random sites. Johnson and Dinsmore imply that this likely results from both species preferring similar site conditions. In May and June in Wisconsin, soras were detected significantly (p<0.025) more often in cattail ("Typha" spp.) survey areas than in sedge areas. However, in southeastern Wisconsin during the breeding season, there was no significant (p=0.943) difference in sora densities between habitats comprised predominantly of cattail, sedge, or bulrush. In


title: "Sora (bird)" content: addition, soras' use of glaucous cattail ("Typha × glauca"), broadfruit bur-reed ("Sparganium eurycarpum"), sedge, river bulrush ("Schoenoplectus fluviatilis"), and hardstem bulrush ("S. acutus var. acutus") habitats in marshes of northwestern Iowa generally reflected availability of these habitats. Seasonal differences in sora habitat use have been reported. In northeastern Missouri in spring, the likelihood of detecting sora in robust emergents, such as cattail ("Typha" spp.) and longroot smartweed ("Polygonum amphibium var. emersum"), was over 6 times that of detecting soras in these areas in fall. However, availability of habitats during various times of the year was not addressed. In a study


title: "Sora (bird)" content: performed in southeastern Missouri, plant species used by sora during spring and fall migration differed significantly (p=0.005). However, the author qualifies this finding with his observation of major seasonal differences in vegetation availability. Temperature may also influence sora abundance. In Colorado, average April temperature was significantly (p<0.01) negatively correlated (r= -0.94) with sora abundance. On sites that had average April temperatures ≤ , soras were more abundant than the closely related Virginia rail ("Rallus limicola"), while on warmer sites the sora to Virginia rail ratio declined. Densities vary from to 12 soras/acre in Colorado to 0.47 pair/ha in Indiana. An


title: "Sora (bird)" content: average of 1.3 soras/ha responded to calls across sites in Colorado. A similar density of soras was found in southeastern Wisconsin. In Iowa, average density over 2 years and several marsh habitats was 1.3 pairs/ha. Landscape factors, such as marsh area, habitat edges within marshes, and the number of marshes in a region may influence soras. Although soras occur in marshes of all sizes, they may occur at higher densities in intermediate-sized marshes. Soras were significantly (p≤0.01) positively related with total wetland area and perimeter area of surface water in east and central Maine and were significantly (p<0.05) positively related


title: "Sora (bird)" content: to area of wetlands in Saskatchewan. In Maine, soras used 10% of wetlands, 40% to 50% of wetlands from in size, and 20% of wetlands larger than . In western New York, soras were significantly (p=0.007) more abundant in marshes from in size than in smaller (< ) or larger () marshes. In addition, sora nests were detected more often in the marshes. Soras also seem to prefer edge habitats. Breeding sora density was significantly (p<0.001) correlated (r=0.62) with the perimeter:area ratio of northwestern Iowa marshes. The distance from the center of sora territories to a habitat edge was also


title: "Sora (bird)" content: significantly (p<0.005) less than from the center of Virginia rail territories. In Arizona, habitat edges were closer to sora heavy use areas than random sites. Wetland dynamics at a large scale can affect soras. Indices of sora population at 3 "levels of response" were significantly (p<0.01) correlated (r≥0.70) with the number of ponds present in the prairie pothole region of North Dakota in May. Soras eat a wide range of foods. Animals that are commonly reported as sora food items include snails (Gastropoda), crustaceans (Crustacea), spiders (Araneae), and insects (Insecta), mainly beetles (Coleoptera), grasshoppers (Orthoptera), flies (Diptera), and dragonflies (Odonata).


title: "Sora (bird)" content: Soras often eat the seeds of plants, such as smartweeds, bulrushes, sedges, and barnyard grasses. Seeds of annual wildrice ("Zizania aquatica") and rice cutgrass are eaten by soras in the eastern United States. A literature review lists crowngrass ("Paspalum" spp.) and rice ("Oryza sativa") as relatively important food sources for soras in the Southeast. Plants comprising <5% of the sora's diet are also listed and include spikerushes ("Eleocharis" spp.), duckweeds (Lemnaceae), pondweeds ("Potamogeton" spp.), panicgrasses ("Panicum" spp.), cordgrasses ("Spartina" spp.), and saltgrass ("Distichlis spicata"). Soras eat more plant food in fall and winter (68%–69%) than in spring and summer (40%).


title: "Sora (bird)" content: Plant material such as hairy crabgrass ("Digitaria sanguinalis"), fall panicgrass ("Panicum dichotomiflorum"), and bristlegrass ("Setaria" spp.) occurred at substantially higher frequencies and in much larger volumes in sora esophagi collected in southeastern Missouri during fall migration than those collected in spring. In addition, animals comprised a larger volume of the spring diet than the fall diet. The volume of animal material in esophagi collected in spring was predominantly composed of adult beetles and snails from the Physidae family. Sora eggs are eaten by several species including American minks ("Mustela vison"), skunks (Mephitidae), coyotes ("Canis latrans"), grackles ("Quiscalus" spp.), crows ("Corvus"


title: "Sora (bird)" content: spp.), and herons (Ardeidae). Predation of adult soras by American minks, coyotes and peregrine falcons ("Falco peregrinus") has been reported. Sora (bird) The sora ("Porzana carolina") is a small waterbird of the family Rallidae, sometimes also referred to as the sora rail or sora crake. The genus name "Porzana" is derived from Venetian terms for small rails, and Carolina refers to the Carolina Colony. "Sora" is probably taken from a Native American language. Adult soras are long, with dark-marked brown upperparts, a blue-grey face and underparts, and black and white barring on the flanks. They have a short thick yellow


title: "Case modding" content: the public, the majority were produced in simple, beige-colored cases. This design is sometimes referred to be as a "beige box". Although this met the purpose of containing the components of the personal computer, many users considered their computers as "tacky" or "dull", and some began modifying their existing chassis, or building their own from scratch. One of the original case mods is the "Macquarium", which consists of replacing the CRT screen in a Compact Macintosh case with a fishbowl. A new market for third-party computer cases and accessories began to develop, and today cases are available in a wide


title: Mascarpone content: Mascarpone Mascarpone (, or ; ) is an Italian cream cheese coagulated by the addition of certain acidic substances such as lemon juice, vinegar, citric acid or acetic acid. It is recognized as a "" (traditional regional food product). After denaturation, the whey is removed without pressing or aging. Mascarpone may also be made using cream and the residual tartaric acid from the bottom or sides of barreled wine. The traditional method is to use lemon juice at a rate of three tablespoons per pint of heated heavy cream. It is allowed to cool to room temperature, poured into a


title: Mascarpone content: cheese cloth lined colander, set into a shallow pan or dish, and chilled for one to two days. Mascarpone originated in the area between Lodi and Abbiategrasso, Italy, southwest of Milan, probably in the late 16th or early 17th century. The name is popularly held to derive from "mascarpa", an unrelated milk product made from the whey of stracchino (a young, barely aged cheese), or from "mascarpia", a word in the local dialect for ricotta. Ricotta, unlike mascarpone, is made from whey. Mascarpone is milky-white in color and is easy to spread. It is used in various Lombardy dishes, and


title: Mascarpone content: is considered a specialty in the region. It is one of the main ingredients in the modern Italian dessert known as tiramisu, and is sometimes used instead of, or along with, butter or Parmesan cheese to thicken and enrich risotto. Mascarpone is also used in cheesecake recipes. Mascarpone Mascarpone (, or ; ) is an Italian cream cheese coagulated by the addition of certain acidic substances such as lemon juice, vinegar, citric acid or acetic acid. It is recognized as a "" (traditional regional food product). After denaturation, the whey is removed without pressing or aging. Mascarpone may also be


title: "Cham Albanians" content: two countries. However, Greece agreed to the creation of a bilateral commission, focused solely on the property issue as a technical problem. The commission was formally set up in 1999, but has not yet functioned. During the 1990s, Albanian diplomacy used the Cham issue as counter-issue against the one related with the Greek minority in Albania. Chams complain that Albania has not raised the Cham issue as much as it should. It was raised officially only during a visit to Athens of former Albanian Prime Minister Ilir Meta at the end of 1999, during his meeting with his Greek counterpart,


title: "Malcolm Blight" content: a team of the greatest 22 players that he had coached, plus four emergencies. This was how the team looked: The four emergencies named were: Peter Caven (Adelaide), Kane Johnson (Adelaide), Peter Riccardi (Geelong) and Tony Modra (Adelaide). Blight continued his football involvement through the media. He commentated for the Seven Network during his hiatus from coaching in 1995 and 1996 and also co-hosted "Talking Footy" with fellow commentator Bruce McAvaney and journalist Mike Sheahan. He was one of the commentators at Waverley Park during the famous "Lights Out Incident" during a night match between and in 1996. After finishing