1. Danger Zone: With the new year signaling the season of migratory birds, the DMZ Migratory Bird Watching Tour offering visits to vantage points in South Korea’s Cheorwon, Gangwon Province, will available through the end of February. Cheorwon is a popular sanctuary for migratory birds, such as cranes, wild geese and eagles, owing to the county’s vast plains that are rich in food and water. The tour consists of stops at the Peace Observatory, the Ice-Cream Hill and Cheorwon DMZ Peace Culture Plaza. The Ice Cream Hill is nicknamed after the shape of its peak Sapseulbong, which resembles an ice cream scoop as a result of countless bomb drops during the Korean War. Despite its tragic history, the place has become a favored spot for avid birdwatchers, since a large flock of cranes can be observed from there during the migration season. (via Korea Herald)
2. Very cool story and film from the Cornell Lab: Most of the 1,200 Greater Adjutant storks in the world are confined to a last stronghold in Assam, India, where they rely on a single garbage dump for food and two nearby villages for nesting. Hargila tells the story of the world's rarest stork, revealing its unique life history and spotlighting the women in the Assamese villages who helped the birds gain the admiration and support of their human neighbors. Watch the trailer, or the full 28-minute film. (via Cornell e-Lab News)
3. They are always a big hit wherever they go: She took a pit stop at one of D.C.’s busiest spots and found meals appetizing to her — rats and pigeons. So was the journey of an immature female snowy owl, says a naturalist expert who spotted it Thursday night atop a statue outside Union Station. The snowy owl has been using the station as its “nightly hunting grounds,” according to Matt Felperin, a roving naturalist for Nova Parks in Northern Virginia. It’s the same snowy owl spotted in late December in D.C. and has been seen in the past few weeks at other spots in the city, including near the National Mall and at Reagan National Airport, according to several birders and wildlife experts. It also reportedly has been seen on the roof of a house in the area and atop a church. (via The Washington Post)
4. More on the rarest bird in years to visit the Lower 48: Everything about seeing a Steller’s Sea-Eagle in New England is incredible. It’s an awe-inspiring bird—about a foot longer and taller than an adult Bald Eagle and as many as five pounds heavier, with a massive golden bill that looks like pirate treasure. It’s rare: There are only about 4,000 of this vulnerable species left in the wild, compared to hundreds of thousands of Bald Eagles. And of course, it’s not supposed to be here. Steller’s Sea-Eagles are native to far eastern Russia, the Korean peninsula, and northern Japan. So how did this bird get to New England? It flew. The whole way. And it’s still flying now. (via Audubon)
5. A good refresher for birders as they search for rarities: Just so you know, the now-legendary Steller’s sea eagle has spent much of the week around Boothbay, ME, glimpsed by a few people, missed by most. Hundreds of binocular-wearing people continue to hunt for it, in Boothbay and elsewhere. In general, the merry crowd’s behavior rates a 9 on a scale where 10 is the Common Ground Fair and 1 is storming the U.S. Capitol. Nonetheless, this might be a good time to talk about birding ethics. The American Birding Association was founded in 1969 as an organization dedicated to recreational birding. There has long been an unwritten understanding about how to watch birds without harming them. The association put those understandings in writing. Its Code of Ethics is considered to be the gold standard, often adopted by other birding groups, organizations and societies. (via Bangor Daily News)
6. Fun to see a common bird here in New England excite (old) England’s birdwatchers: The arrival of a belted kingfisher has sent excited birdwatchers flocking to Lancashire, U.K. The birds, famous for their shaggy crests, are usually found on inland lakes in the United States and Canada and have been recorded in the UK on only three previous occasions. The North American visitor is thought to have either “hitched a ride” on a vessel or been “blown” across the Atlantic. It was first spotted on the River Ribble, near Samlesbury, by George Shannon, a birder and fisherman. The bird then flew to the Brockholes Nature Reserve where it was subsequently spotted by others. “I was fishing close to Red Scar Woods when I heard a very loud but unfamiliar rattling croaky call,” Shannon said. (via The Times)
7. What it takes (hint - 49,000 miles): Tiffany Kersten, a formerly down-on-her-luck Mission resident turned jet-setting is a record-breaking bird-watcher. At the end of December, after driving 49,000 miles and hopping on more than fifty flights across the country, Kersten, 35, broke the American Birding Association’s record for most bird identifications in the lower 48 states within a calendar year. Known as a Big Year, the daunting project is a little like a self-directed, avian-focused version of The Amazing Race. Kersten saw 726 species, topping the previous high of 724. (via Texas Monthly)
8. A slow death is creeping through Earth’s forests and other green landscapes. As animals are killed by hunters or forced away by logging, for example, the plants that depend on them to carry their seeds begin to disappear. Over time, trees and other plants may vanish. Climate change is accelerating this process, a new study suggests—and it may ultimately harm not just biodiversity, but the ability of ecosystems to store carbon and provide food and clean water. Although the seeds of dandelions and other plants take to the air with feathery wings, about half of all species rely on birds and mammals to eat or carry their fruits and nuts to new places. When these partners disappear, forests and plant communities can struggle to regenerate. (via Science)
9. 500,000 years: A million years ago, the soundtrack of the "sky island" mountains of East Africa may have been very similar to what it is today. That's because a group of tiny, colorful birds has been singing the exact same tunes for more than 500,000 years — and maybe as long as 1 million years. Sunbirds in the family Nectariniidae are colorful, tiny, nectar-feeding birds that resemble hummingbirds and are common throughout Africa and Asia. The skyscraping peaks have isolated different populations, or lineages, of this species from one another for tens of thousands to a million years. But despite not interacting at all, many populations of sky island sunbirds are indistinguishable from each other. (via Live Science)
10. Motus Wildlife Tracking System in action: If you happen to notice a new antenna on top of the environmental center at Big Marsh Park, once part of Southeast Side steel mill dumping grounds and now home to burgeoning habitat and a growing number of birds, your first thought might not be that it’s aiding in answering some of the great mysteries of the natural world. But Chicago is now home to a receiver on the Motus wildlife tracking system, a global network that helps scientists make sense of migration. Now, the billions of birds flying through the city — a major migratory flyway — are viable candidates to be followed through their life cycles, said Edward Warden, president of the Chicago Ornithological Society. (via Chicago Tribune)
For more on the power and importance of the Motus international network, read A World On The Wing by Scott Weidensaul.
11. From down under: Less than 80 years ago, regent honeyeaters ruled Australia’s flowering gum forests, with huge raucous flocks roaming from Adelaide to Rockhampton. Now, there are less than 300 birds left in the wild. Habitat loss has pushed the survivors into little pockets across their once vast range. Sadly, our new research shows these birds are now heading for rapid extinction. Unless we urgently boost conservation efforts, the regent honeyeater will follow the passenger pigeon into oblivion within the next 20 years. If we let the last few die, the regent honeyeater will be only the second bird extinction on the Australian mainland since European colonisation, following the paradise parrot. (via The Conversation)
12. Birding Magee Marsh Wildlife Area in early May is a must at least once if birders can swing it: The magical spring migration along Northwest Ohio’s Lake Erie shoreline attracts a wide range of birds from waterfowl to warblers. Joining them, as well, again this year are the folks who love to hunker down in prime habitat and watch the visiting birds with binoculars, or hope for the perfect pose for a photograph. That perfect match has hatched the “Biggest Week in American Birding,” organized and hosted by the Black Swamp Bird Observatory (BSBO) based at the Magee Marsh Wildlife Area in Oak Harbor on the Lake Erie shoreline. Since its inception, the Biggest Week now lures more more than 100,000 birders to the area. Although the 10-day festival has been put on remote by the Covid-19 pandemic the last two years, the BSBO has announced the in-person birding adventures will return on May 6-15. (via The Beacon)
Bird Photo of the Week
Photo by Rick Bunting, American Kestrel.
Bird Videos of the Week
By Faces of Change, Corina Newsome on Ornithology.
Cornell Live Bird Cam - Ladder-backed Woodpecker.
Cornell Live Bird Cam - Albatross Egg!