Welcome to Earth Life

I'm Gordon Ramel, and for the past two and a half decades I've been writing about the extraordinary creatures that share this planet with us. Earth Life is the result — an encyclopaedia of life on Earth, built one species, one anatomy diagram, one weird behavioural oddity at a time. From the spider in your bath to the deepest fish in the trench, if it has cells and a story, it probably has a page here.

What started as a side project to share my fascination with insects has grown to cover birds, fish, mammals, invertebrates, lichens, even prokaryotes. The articles are written for the curious — readable enough for a Sunday afternoon, accurate enough for a biology student looking up the difference between a raven and a crow.

What you'll find here

Browse by group using the menu above, search if you know what you're looking for, or just scroll. Most articles run 1,500 to 3,000 words and include illustrations, photographs, and the occasional embarrassing personal story about meeting a particular animal in the wild. New articles go up most weeks — the latest ones are listed below.

birds
Gila Woodpeckers
Table of Contents Toggle Gila Woodpecker (Melanerpes uropygialis) Distribution / Range Subspecies and Ranges Description Similar species: Breeding / Nesting Diet / Feeding Calls / Vocalisations Alternate (Global) Names Gila Woodpecker (Melanerpes uropygialis) Member of the Picidae Family: Woodpeckers…
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The 8 Best Quality Chicken Brooders
The 5 Best Cheap Chicken Brooders
Breeding Pheasants
Housing Pheasants
Feeding Muscovy & Wild Ducks
Wild Bird Houses
Coronation Sussex Chicken
Muscovy vs Pekin Duck (& Other Ducks)

Bird Anatomy
Bird Frontal Shield
A bird’s forehead, also known as the frontal region, contains a fascinating array of specialized adaptations suited to their way of life. This integral anatomical region between the eyes and upper mandible performs a variety of essential functions for vision,…
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Bird Forehead Or Frontal Shield
Australian Waterbirds

Wing Anatomy
If you've spent any time reading the older bird literature you've met the wing-topography vocabulary in passing: primaries, secondaries, tertials, the…
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Eye-stripe
Occiput
Sinciput
Rufous-bellied Eagles
White-fronted Plovers
Tufted Flycatchers
White-shouldered Fire-eyes
Yellow-bellied Flycatchers

How to Tell If Your Bird Is Hungry
This question turns up in our reader email more often than people would guess, because the signs that a pet bird is hungry are subtler than the signs a…
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Can Birds Eat Xylitol? The Short, Loud Answer
Can Birds Eat Popcorn?
Can Birds Eat Avocado? The Honest Answer
The 8 Best Quality Chicken Brooders
The 5 Best Cheap Chicken Brooders
The Moustached Parakeet
What Birds Can Be Kept With Budgies
Domesticated Ducks

Waterfowl
American Wigeon
The American Wigeon, also known as the Baldpate and commonly called American Widgeon (Anas Americana), is one of North America’s most widely recognised and common dabbling ducks. The males of this species are best known for their distinctive cream-colored heads and…
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African Rails
Common Teals
Upland Geese
Toulouse Geese
Orinoco Geese
Thick-billed Murres
Glossy Ibises
Yellow-billed Teals

How Bowerbirds Attract a Mate (and Whether They’re “for Life”)
The bowerbirds (family Ptilonorhynchidae, twenty-odd species across Australia and New Guinea) are the textbook example in popular natural history of birds…
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Can Flamingos Drink Boiling Water?
Do Peacocks Eat Snakes?
Audubon’s Warbler
Black-throated Gray Warbler
Black-throated Green Warbler
Blackburnian Warbler
Bay-breasted Warbler
Cerulean Warbler

Muscovy Ducks
Feeding Muscovy & Wild Ducks
Overview and Introduction The Muscovy duck (Cairina moschata) and various species of wild ducks are fascinating waterfowl commonly found in freshwater habitats around the world. These birds are well-known for their unique feeding behaviors and omnivorous diets, which include a…
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Muscovy Duck Behavior
Muscovy Duck Facts
Keeping Muscovy Ducks With Chickens: What You Should Know
Domesticated Muscovy Ducks
How to Care for Baby Muscovy Ducks?
Muscovy vs Pekin Duck (& Other Ducks)
Are Muscovy Ducks Invasive Species?
Muscovy Duck Caruncles: Why Do Muscovy Ducks Have Bumps on Their Faces

Breeding
What Is Asexual Reproduction?
Asexual reproduction is a process in biology that is quite interesting because it permits living beings to give birth without having sex partners. It is common among many unicellular organisms, plants and even some animals. Unlike sexual reproduction where two…
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The Best Egg Incubators
The 8 Best Quality Chicken Brooders
The 5 Best Cheap Chicken Brooders
Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers Nest Box
Common Goldeneye Nest Box
Elaborate & Complex Bird Nests
Bird Nest Identification

Welcome to Earth Life

What you'll find here

Recent Articles

Birds