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1. With wildfires raging once again across California, Oregon, and other western states, it’s easy to be overcome with despair. The damage, loss of life, and suffering have been immense. Blackened lands and smoldering trees testify to fire’s destructive power, and we see it as an enemy. Yet wildfires, even those raging this summer in California’s Sierra Nevada Range and in Oregon’s Cascade Range, are also beneficial, playing a vital role in keeping ecosystems healthy. Numerous animals—including several species of woodpeckers, such as the black-backed and the red-cockaded—can’t survive without the fires that create perfect habitat for them. (via National Geographic)
2. Biologists at New Mexico State University are trying to find out why hundreds of thousands of migratory birds have been found dead across the state. The mystery started August 20 with the discovery of a large number of dead birds at the US Army White Sands Missile Range and White Sands National Monument, according to Martha Desmond, a professor at the university's department of fish, wildlife and conservation ecology. What was first believed to be an isolated incident turned out to be a much more serious problem when hundreds more dead birds were found in regions across the state. including Doña Ana County, Jemez Pueblo, Roswell and Socorro. (via CNN)
By Hap Ellis, Bald Eagle.
3. A colorful bird species was recorded in Europe for the first time after it flew 3,000 miles off course and turned up in the garden of a Scottish RSPB officer. The yellow-bellied flycatcher, which is native to north America and Canada, migrates to central America each winter. It is believed to have been blown off course by recent weather systems and arrived in a garden on Tiree, the most westerly island of the Inner Hebrides. “I quickly knew what it was,” John Bowler, an RSPB officer said. “It is a dream bird and I am very pleased that it is the first time it has been recorded in the Western Paleartic and in my garden.” (via The Times)
4. Many of the characteristics related to auditory attention in birds match those of humans, according to a study from the University at Buffalo. The findings provide novel insights into evolutionary survival mechanisms, and are the first to behaviorally measure the cognitive process responsible for a non-human animal’s ability to segregate and respond to meaningful targets heard in simultaneous sound streams. For humans, auditory attention can mean having a conversation in a noisy room, but still recognizing and responding (attention capture) to hearing a name being called from a distance. But what amounts largely to social utility for humans becomes a matter of survival for birds. (via University of Buffalo)
5. Throwback: A diminutive bird known for its shrill, high-pitched call is threatening to derail one of Canada’s biggest music festivals after it built a nest in the same location as the main stage was slated to be erected. The first hint of trouble for Ottawa’s Bluesfest, an outdoor festival that draws some 300,000 people each year in the nation’s capital, came last week after workers at the site stumbled across an agitated killdeer, a brown and white bird that weighs less than five ounces. The bird – which enjoys protected status in Canada – had laid four speckled eggs on a cobblestone patch, effectively claiming the main stage area as its nesting grounds. (via The Guardian)
By Hap Ellis, Young Killdeer.
6. Excerpt: Maybe I’m a bird nerd, but every summer I log in my calendar when I see the first kōlea of the year. It’s one of those momentous occasions for me, seeing a Pacific golden plover flap its long wings—these birds have a 17-inch wingspan—or perch on a rooftop in my neighborhood. Called kōlea in Hawaiian, these small yellow-and-buff mottled shorebirds are amazing long-distance travelers: After breeding in the Siberia and westernmost Alaska, these birds travel to Hawaiʻi—and sometimes on to Alaska—covering more than 2,000 miles in a single nonstop flight. And with no inflight amenities! (via Hawaii Magazine)
7. On Washington Tweeters, a site run by the American Birding Association, Scott Atkinson, of Lake Stevens, wrote about what he witnessed Monday at a 6- by 15-foot pond in his front yard. We had an unprecedented ‘mobbing’ of about 75 birds, mostly Pine Siskins, landing at the pond’s edges, and in the adjacent shrubs, in what appeared to be animated and stressed behavior,” he wrote. Atkinson says the wildfire smoke hanging over the area has lowered temperatures, so it wasn’t as if there was a heat wave. The birds were flying around rapidly, trying to get to the pond, he said. “I had never seen anything like it.” (via The Seattle Times)
By Hap Ellis, Sanderling.
8. Thanks to a new report, “Financing Nature: Closing the Global Biodiversity Financing Gap,” by the Paulson Institute, The Nature Conservancy, and Cornell University, we now have an authoritative analysis of the financial resources needed to stop and reverse the catastrophic biodiversity declines happening across the globe. The Financing Nature report highlights the crucial need for all governments, national and sub-national (states or provinces/territories) included, to increase funding for conservation and development of these nature-based climate solutions. (via Audubon)
9. Maureen Murray, V03, director of Tufts Wildlife Clinic and clinical associate professor at Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine, has been studying rodenticide exposure in birds of prey for over a decade. Mice and rats, or possibly other animals, eat the poison, and then the birds eat the poisoned prey. Murray has witnessed a steady increase in the number of birds of prey with rodenticides in their systems—some with fatal levels. But even Murray was taken aback by the results of her most recent study. "One hundred percent of the red-tailed hawks in the present study tested positive for exposure to anticoagulant rodenticides," said Murray. (via Phys Org)
Helpful: There are probably more articles on feeding birds than on any other single topic in bird world. Data show that this is an enormously popular activity — 45 million Americans feed or watch birds, or like many of us, do both. In my research on birders across the country, Over 89% of the 5,502 birders who took journalist Terry Rich’s survey reported having at least one bird feeder. The average number of feeders was just over five. Four individuals reported having 50 or more feeders! There are three major things to consider when choosing how you will feed birds — what type of feeder(s), what type of seed(s), and where will you put the feeder(s). (via Idaho Press)
Bird Photo of the Week
By Miles Griffis, Greater Roadrunner.
Bird Videos of the Week
By Bangor Daily News, “Count these migrating seabirds along the coast”.
Cornell Live Bird Cam, Northern Royal Albatross Fledges.
Cornell Live Bird Cam, Great Horned Owls move into Savannah Osprey nest.