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©KING |
Madrona Beach has been closed for swimming. |
Earth Changes
"We were called in with a report that a man had been swarmed by what looked like hornets and appeared to be having a severe allergic reaction," said Rick Ruppenthal, the central Vancouver Island superintendent for the B.C. Ambulance Service. "Apparently he had no previous history of allergies."
The call to 9-1-1 came in at 9:30 a.m. yesterday from another hiker with a cellphone.
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©Brian Schmidt |
A male specimen of the newly-discovered olive-backed forest robin is carefully examined in the hand of Brian Schmidt, the Smithsonian ornithologist who discovered the species. |
The newly found olive-backed forest robin (Stiphrornis pyrrholaemus) was named by the scientists for its distinctive olive back and rump. Adult birds measure 4.5 inches in length and average 18 grams in weight. Males exhibit a fiery orange throat and breast, yellow belly, olive back and black feathers on the head. Females are similar, but less vibrant. Both sexes have a distinctive white dot on their face in front of each eye.
The bird was first observed by Smithsonian scientists in 2001 during a field expedition of the National Zoo's Monitoring and Assessment of Biodiversity Program in southwest Gabon. It was initially thought, however, to be an immature individual of an already-recognized species. Brian Schmidt, a research ornithologist at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History and a member of the MAB program's team, returned to Washington, D.C., from Gabon in 2003 with several specimens to enter into the museum's bird collection. When he compared them with other forest robins of the genus Stiphrornis in the collection, Schmidt immediately noticed differences in color and plumage, and realized the newly collected birds might be unique.
The carcasses were found with gunshot wounds on the coastline of the Chukotka Peninsula near the Chegitun River on Friday. Officials believe that the mammals were killed around two to four weeks ago.
Most often on this forum we have looked at either surface temperature data from surface observations or lower tropospheric temperature data derived from satellite sounders. Today I'd like to point out a short scale trend in global radiosonde data showing cooling in the last year, as well as examine the record back to 1958.
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©Hadley Center |