1. The magnificent wedge-tailed eagle is Australia’s largest bird of prey, but it’s endangered in Tasmania. There are a few regulations in place to try and help the species, but not much science to determine if the regulations are working. Over the last few years we’ve made some grim findings – evidence of widespread rat poison and lead exposure in wedge-tailed eagles in Tasmania. The high levels of rat poisons we found in Tasmanian wedge-tailed eagles was also particularly concerning as they don’t normally eat rats. This suggests that rat poisons may be moving through the food chain. Rats that eat the poison could be eaten by other predators, which in turn could be eaten by eagles, which is very concerning. (via Cosmos)
2. Changes: Global warming is changing European birds as we know them, but it’s not just the increase in temperature that’s to blame. Researchers have found that garden warblers, for example, are having a quarter fewer chicks, which has huge implications for the species. Researchers pored over data collected since the mid-60s in Britain and the Netherlands on 60 different species, including the house sparrow, the crested tit, the reed bunting, the bullfinch and the willow warbler. Although research has already linked the way passerines are getting smaller over time to hotter temperatures, scientists weren’t sure whether this was due to heat stress directly or because rising temperatures make it harder to forage. (via The Guardian)
3. With Spring migration in its early stages, BNI will be following these kinds of stories: Collisions with windows cause billions of bird deaths each year. From patterned glass to netting, here are eight ways to make buildings more bird-friendly. Reflective surfaces are "the main culprit" for mass bird deaths according to Melissa Breyer, a volunteer who has studied bird-window collisions in New York City. "Birds do not understand the concept of glass," added architect Dan Piselli, director of sustainability at US architecture studio FXCollaborative, who has worked on reducing bird strikes at several New York City buildings. "They didn't evolve to deal with glass. They simply cannot see it." (via Dezeen)
4. Another reason to go to Alta: There was a flutter of movement across the aspen treetops near Ogden Valley early March 2. Chirps echoed through the air as bystanders froze, anxious with anticipation. Finally, one of the palm-sized birds made his way near a trap, snacking on seed thrown across a slushy patch of concrete. But the slam of a car door sent the flock scattering across the cold sky — an opportunity lost to learn more about one of the least-understood birds on the continent. The rosy finch is a deep brown or chestnut-colored bird with striking pink undertail feathers, and it resides on mountaintops from New Mexico to Alaska. Researchers from the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources and Utah State University are learning more about these birds at Powder Mountain and Alta Ski Resort, which serve as banding stations where scientists can briefly trap and track them. (via The Salt Lake Tribune)
5. Can’t they do anything right in Cuba?: The men began arriving with their champion crooners early on a Sunday morning. Sidestepping the tall weeds and trash mounds that blocked the narrow path, they gathered at a secluded spot in Havana. It was September—bird migration season in Cuba—and the recent influx of coveted songbirds had set off a flurry of illegal trapping and selling. Painted buntings, indigo buntings, and rose-breasted grosbeaks, a collective riot of color and song, were in high demand. A 2011 Cuban law on biological diversity prohibits capturing many songbirds for anything but scientific research. Competitions, with wagers on birds that sing the longest, most melodious tunes, are illegal too. Yet people openly post footage from the contests, and some Facebook posts offering songbirds for sale explicitly note ones that were captura—trapped in the wild. (via National Geographic)
6. You might need Newton’s second law for this: Birds morph their wing shape to accomplish extraordinary manoeuvres, which are governed by avian-specific equations of motion. Solving these equations requires information about a bird’s aerodynamic and inertial characteristics. Avian flight research to date has focused on resolving aerodynamic features, whereas inertial properties including centre of gravity and moment of inertia are seldom addressed. Here we use an analytical method to determine the inertial characteristics of 22 species across the full range of elbow and wrist flexion and extension. We find that wing morphing allows birds to substantially change their roll and yaw inertia but has a minimal effect on the position of the centre of gravity. (via Nature)
7. From Newton’s second law to sequencing DNA: Much of a centuries-old debate over where and how new bird species form has now been resolved. Researchers at the University of Copenhagen have provided evidence that birds in mountainous areas — where the vast majority of the planet's species live — have left lowland habitats for higher and higher mountain elevations throughout their evolution. Millions of years of climatic fluctuations have contributed to pushing bird species upslope — as is probably happening now. One of the fundamental questions in biology, and a centuries-old academic debate, is: How do new species form? And, how do species end up on mountaintops several kilometers high? Indeed, 85% of the world's vertebrates — birds included — live in mountainous areas where lowland habitats isolate animal species and populations from one another. (via Science Daily)
8. Quick learners: The California scrub-jay, a generally non-social bird, can learn just as well as another species of jay that lives in groups, a finding that surprised animal intelligence researchers who devised a novel food puzzle to study cognition in the wild. The research illustrates the complexity of the link between social behavior and the evolution of intelligence, say the scientists, who had expected the group-oriented Mexican jay to outperform the scrub-jay. "Further studies with wild animals are clearly necessary to develop a better understanding of when, where and why intelligence evolved," said Valente, a postdoctoral scholar in the OSU College of Forestry. (via Science Daily)
9. The power of technology (a continuing theme): The University of Hawaii’s Listening Observatory for Hawaiian Ecosystems Lab in Hilo is trying to find a way to improve AI technology that tracks birds. Researchers put weather-proof recorders out in the wild and normally have to go through days of audio. Now, they are holding a computer coding competition in hopes of improving the AI technology that identifies the different species of birds. With so many fragile species in Hawaii, it’s important to gather as much information on them as they can. “We’re basically in a race against time right now, with climate change,” Hart said. (via Hawaii News Now)
10. Oh dear: In a city that knows all too well about the fragility of the power grid, it wasn’t a hurricane or a heat wave that knocked out power to thousands of customers in New Orleans on Wednesday morning. The power company said it believed that a bird of an unknown type had damaged an electrical substation serving parts of downtown and the Uptown neighborhood, affecting nearly 10,000 utility customers, according to Entergy New Orleans. The power failure began around 9 a.m. and became fodder for widespread derision on social media. It was not clear what happened to the bird. The Louisiana Department of Revenue said that its office in New Orleans was closed because of the lack of electricity. (via The New York Times)
11. Trouble at the door: It may be a matter of when, not if, the latest wave of avian influenza infects Minnesota flocks. The bigger question is whether it will be as devastating as the 2015 outbreak that caused the death of 9 million birds in Minnesota, the nation's leading turkey producer. Cases of highly pathogenic avian influenza have infected commercial and backyard flocks in Iowa and South Dakota in recent weeks after first turning up in an Indiana turkey operation early in February. The virus spreads easily among different bird species — chickens, turkeys, geese and bald eagles have all tested positive for the strain causing outbreaks — but it has not been detected in humans in the U.S.. (via Star Tribune)
12. Just one more in a desperate litany of disinformation: The Kremlin appears to be ramping up its disinformation campaign to a totally absurd degree as the conflict in Ukraine drags on. On Thursday, among other things, the Russian Ministry of Defense made a wholly unsubstantiated and outright bizarre claim that the U.S. government is somehow training birds infected with or otherwise carrying biological weapons to fly from Ukraine to Russia. (via The Drive)
13. Travel extra: Anyone with a bird feeder — or a cat — knows that watching the avian world go about its business can be mesmerizing. Now imagine being right at the center of the action in a spherical room suspended among the trees, covered in 350 birdhouses. That's what Treehotel, a hotel in Sweden's Lapland made up of some of the world's most eye-catching tree houses, is offering with Biosphere — its latest "room." Couple and co-owners Kent and Britta Lindvall created Treehotel in 2010 with modern design and the environment in mind. Partnering with multiple Scandinavian designers, Treehotel's initial rooms varied widely in design, from the reflective Mirror Cube to the branch-filled Bird's Nest. (via CNN)
Bird Photo of the Week
By Hap Ellis, Cooper’s Hawk – Arnold Arboretum, Boston.
Bird Videos of the Week
By CBS, “Conan Goes Birdwatching in Central Paek”.
Cornell Live Bird Cam - Bermuda Petrel Chick!
Cornell Live Bird Cam - Owl Nest Cam.