Cape Town Penguins.
Bird News Items
1. Let’s begin with two stories from Audubon of note, given what is going on with DOGE – the first: “Birds fly south in the winter.” It’s a phrase so familiar it feels like common sense. But the idea that birds migrate -- let alone where they go and how they get there -- is knowledge hard-won through decades of careful observation and scientific discovery. In the United States, much of what we know about bird movements, populations, and the health of our ecosystems comes from two foundational programs run by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS): the Bird Banding Laboratory (BBL) and the North American Breeding Bird Survey (BBS). These programs don’t just tell us where birds go. They reveal how our environment is changing, which species are declining, and where conservation action is most needed —making clear that both programs merit our attention and support. (via Audubon)
2. And then the second: For 105 years, a small team of biologists near Washington, D.C., has honed and supported the single most foundational tool of avian science: crimping metal ID bands around birds’ legs to track where they turn up. Simple as it sounds, banding and the data collection that comes with it have revealed vital insights into how birds behave, which habitats they most depend on, and how their populations are faring. “Banding is the essential key to all the research I do, and that a lot of ornithologists do across North America,” says José Ramírez-Garofalo, a New York City-based ecologist and vice chair of the Ornithological Council representing bird researchers. But the Bird Banding Lab, a program of the U.S. Geological Survey’s biological research arm, may not survive to reach 106. (via Audubon)
By Hap Ellis, Southern Yellow-billed Hornbill - Okavango Delta, Botswana.
3. Dance moves matter - at least to female Greater Sage-Grouse - says this Yale study: When it comes to impressing the ladies, greater sage-grouse males know that smooth dance moves trump combative posturing. Indeed, new Yale research into these prairie-dwelling birds confirms that female preference is more important than male aggression when it’s time to mate. During mating season, male greater sage-grouse gather in communal groups called leks. To attract females, they engage in showy dances, strutting around with puffed-out chests and fanned-out tail feathers. They also fight with each other. Some birds are more aggressive, others less so. Researchers have long thought these battles were likely designed to impress female onlookers. It turns out, however, that female grouse are more interested in the dance displays and are more likely to mate with males who put on a good show. (via YaleNews)
4. Why birds sing: New research finds that territorial behavior and diet help explain why some birds sing more often at dawn, challenging traditional theories about dawn choruses. The study was published June 12 in the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B. Scientists from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s K. Lisa Yang Center for Conservation Bioacoustics and Project Dhvani in India studied 69 bird species in India’s Western Ghats mountain range, one of the world's biodiversity hotspots, to understand why birds sing more or less at different times of the day. (via Cornell Chronicle)
5. “Surprising” – 15% increase in shorebirds visiting the Salton Sea: A new study by Audubon California has found a 15% increase in the number of shore birds at the Salton Sea, despite a prolonged ecological decline there. The findings are surprising because in recent years as the area has gotten drier, there have been fish die-offs and fewer of the larger, fish-eating birds, like pelicans. The study suggests the changes in the area’s ecology has specifically attracted more shore birds like the Western sandpiper. (via LAist)
6. Meet the Paul Revere of the grasslands: Prairie dogs are the Paul Reveres of the Great Plains: They bark to alert neighbors to the presence of predators, with separate calls for dangers coming by land or by air. “Prairie dogs are on the menu for just about every predator you can think of”— golden eagles, red-tailed hawks, foxes, badgers, even large snakes — said Andy Boyce, a research ecologist in Montana at the Smithsonian's National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute. Those predators will also snack on grassland nesting birds like the long-billed curlew. To protect themselves, the curlews eavesdrop on the alarms coming from prairie dog colonies, according to research published Thursday in the journal Animal Behavior. (via ABC News Go)
By Hap Ellis, Cape Penguins - Cape Town, South Africa.
7. Distressing news for a most impressive bird: Emperor penguin populations in Antarctica have shrunk by almost a quarter as global warming transforms their icy habitat, according to new research on Tuesday that warned the losses were far worse than previously imagined. Scientists monitoring the world's largest penguin species used satellites to assess sixteen colonies in the Antarctic Peninsula, Weddell Sea and Bellingshausen Sea, representing nearly a third of the global emperor penguin population. What they found was "probably about 50-percent worse" than even the most pessimistic estimate of current populations using computer modelling, said Peter Fretwell, who tracks wildlife from space at the British Antarctic Survey (BAS). Researchers know thatclimate change is driving the losses but the speed of the declines is a particular cause for alarm. (via Science Alert)
More on Emperor Penguins is here: Emperor Penguin - Aptenodytes forsteri - Birds of the World
8. What it takes – in this case to see Piping Plovers breed successfully in the Big Apple: Bird lovers rejoice: it's nesting season for the piping plover, one of the cutest and most vulnerable native birds living along the New York coastline. The next few months are crucial for the survival of this beloved shorebird species, which is why a group of volunteers have banded together to protect their habitats along local beaches. NYC Plover Project volunteers work together to protect endangered piping plovers and other shorebirds that nest on our city's beaches. "There's something like 6,000-8,000 left in the whole world, and the fact that they come here to the New York area, to the shoreline ... that's a massive gift," said Chris Allieri, founder of the NYC Plover Project. "Piping plovers are such special, adorable birds," said Mel Julien, also part of the NYC Plover Project. (via ABC 7 NY)
9. If you find ethyl glucuronide in a bird’s feathers, what does it tell you? Herewith the answer: Researchers have found that some birds may ingest traces of ethanol through everyday foods. This behavior has fascinated ecologists who are keen to see if it affects flight or general health – especially when birds consume nectar, fruits, or even insects that have fed on fermenting plants. The research was led by Dr. Robert Dudley and colleagues from the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology at the University of California, Berkeley. The team studied the presence of ethyl glucuronide (EtG) in feathers to investigate which species might be getting a dose of ethanol from their usual meals. (via Earth)
10. Four years of work, one global list: AviList – a brand-new, unified global checklist of bird species and taxonomy – has been published today. Containing 11,131 species, 19,879 subspecies, 2,376 genera, 252 families and 46 orders, this new checklist brings together global thinking on what constitutes a species and shakes up our understanding of the avian world. Until now, ornithologists and birders have used a selection of global checklists, each with its own reasoning on what constitutes a specific species of bird. AviList’s unified view has taken four years of work by the Working Group on Avian Checklists, containing representatives from BirdLife International, the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, the American Ornithological Society, the International Ornithologists’ Union (IOU), and Avibase. The new checklist will replace the International Ornithological Congress (IOC) and Clements lists, and will be updated annually. (via BirdLife)
By Hap Ellis, African Openbill - Zambesi River, Victoria Falls, Zambia.
11. And then there is the new AvianLexiconAtlas: There are thousands of species of birds, and many of their names are well-known to us—blue jay, robin, and mallard, to name just a few. But we have little understanding of the holistic nature of avian nomenclature. Do birds' names tend to stem from physical or biological traits, such as a black-and-white warbler, or, rather, from people—such as Bonaparte's gull, which was named after Charles Lucien Bonaparte, an ornithologist and nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte? A new study by New York University and the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County answers many of these questions. The study has been published in PLOS One.
12. A paean to the Genus Tachycineta: I could wax poetic for many hours on the beauty and grace of the swallows and martins that make up the Hirundinidae family. They are found on all the continents, but the greatest diversity exists in Africa and the Americas. All are found in a wide variety of open habitats, often near water, but ranging from coastal mangroves to inland savannahs. Here on Cape Cod, we generally see three species: the bank swallow, the tree swallow, and the barn swallow. The forked tail barn swallow (Hirundo rustica) that many will recognize is placed in another genus, Hirundo, and though closely related, it will not interbreed with Tachycineta. I know Latin is a “dead” language, but it provides an important way not only to organize all the species found on Earth but to define them with succinct words associated with traits found typically in physical attributes. (via Provincetown Independent)
13. Leucistic or albinism – regardless, a starling “so beautiful I couldn’t even describe it”: Bird watchers have been baffled by the appearance of a rare white bird in their town. People in Chatteris, Cambridgeshire, have been on the lookout for what is believed to be a starling with leucism - a type of genetic mutation which affects pigment in birds' feathers. After spotting it in her back garden, Claire Roby, 32, said the starling was "so beautiful I couldn't even describe it”. But members of the Cambridgeshire Bird Club have debated if the bird was leucistic or had albinism, a condition characterized by a lack of melanin pigment resulting in white or pale plumage. (via BBC)
14. Pictures we wish we took – check out this Agami Heron, “a spectacular and unique heron of lowland primary forest in Central America and northern South America” (BOW)
More on the Agami Heron from Birds of the World is here: Agami Heron - Agamia agami - Birds of the World
By Hap Ellis, African Hoopoe - Okavango Delta, Botswana.
15. From time to time we come across new ways that communities use to engage on the subject of birds – often in the form of a contest. The 2025 Wisconsin Fat Bird Week breaks new ground: A very round white throated sparrow is the heavyweight champion of the 2025 Wisconsin Fat Bird Week contest. The bird, coined the “spherical white-throated sparrow,” won by a landslide, receiving 72% of the vote in the final round against its nearest competitor, a “rotund ruby-throated hummingbird.” The winner made it through eight rounds in the single-elimination, March Madness-style bracket competition against seven other birds. The Fat Bird Week Contest celebrates Wisconsin’s native bird species and also aims to educate the public on ways to help them, said Emma Schatz, the digital communications coordinator at the Natural Resources Foundation of Wisconsin. (via Great Lakes News)
16. Meet the ABA’s Young Birder of the Year: A Gahanna, OH, teen was named the Young Birder of the Year by the American Birding Association. Killian Sullivan's passion for birds was sparked after a family trip to California. Killian has been birding for four years and has already documented 691 species of birds! His goal is to reach 700, which is a gold standard in the United States. He also shares his passion with others in the bird community at Grange Insurance Audubon Center by teaching classes. (via ABC 6 News)
17. Finally, since most of us will never see a Brown Wood-Owl, there’s this from Hong Kong: A rare wild owl bred in Hong Kong has attracted numerous photography enthusiasts and bird watchers to the Kadoorie Farm and Botanic Garden. To protect the owl and prevent visitors from getting too close, the park has decided to temporarily close a section of the site. Images on social media showed crowds of excited people pushing each other on a path in the farm’s nature area. They had their cameras pointed at the trees where the rare brown wood owl was nesting with its parents. With its unique deep and dark brown eyes, the species is native to Hong Kong, according to the farm’s website. They are believed to have arrived in the city in the past two decades, probably as a result of a natural range expansion from Guangdong province in mainland China. They can also be found in South Asia and Southeast Asia. (via South China Morning Post)
Bird Videos of the Week
Video by CBC News, “Heads up, Toronto: These birds are on the attack”.
Cornell Live Bird Cam - Pair-bonding Ospreys.
Cornell Live Bird Cam - Cornell Hawks.
Go Birding!