1. Corina Newsome calls it a gateway bird, the one special species that sets an avian enthusiast on a lifetime course of discovery and environmental passion. Hers was the blue jay. For Tykee James, it was the belted kingfisher. When asked what his favorite bird is, Alex Troutman paused. "Can I give you a top three?" The northern crested caracara. The white ibis. And, of course, the penguin. These young Black naturalists — and the birds they love — are some of the stars of Black Birders Week, a series of events and activities designed to highlight Black scientists, scholars and everyday nature lovers. While spreading their joy and knowledge, the countless people involved in the movement are also raising visibility of Black achievement at a painfully critical time. (via CNN, Scientific American)
2. An international team of ornithologists has described three new species of the bird genus Scytalopus from the Peruvian Andes. Scytalopus is a genus of small passerine birds in the family Rhinocryptidae (tapaculos). Members of this genus inhabit mountains and foothills in Central America and the Atlantic Forest, but their diversity is greatest in the Andes. In a new study, Dr. Niels Krabbe, an ornithologist in the Natural History Museum of Denmark at the University of Copenhagen, and colleagues revised the taxonomy of Scytalopus tapaculos from the Peruvian Andes. “We employ an integrated framework using a combination of vocal information, mitochondrial DNA sequences, and appearance, gathered from our own fieldwork over the past 40 years and supplemented with community-shared birdsong archives and museum specimens.” (via Sci News)
By Hap Ellis, Blackpoll Warbler.
3. In the midst of bustling factories and glitzy high-rises in Foshan, a manufacturing city in south China, Xian Quanhui is the proud owner of a unique bamboo forest, which has emerged as the refuge for thousands of birds. Locals deem it the "egret paradise," a secluded, lush wood — the size of 16 football fields — in the Shunde District. While the surrounding factories produce most of the world's air conditioners and microwave ovens, this green enclave is where about 20,000 egrets are born every year. Wearing black rain shoes, baggy jeans, and a worn plaid shirt, Xian is the guardian of the forest. His efforts to create the micro wetland from scratch in the past 20 years won him the sobriquet "Uncle Bird of Shunde.” (via Xinhua Net)
4. It is one of South Africa’s most iconic birds, and its numbers are in decline, mostly due to climate change. But scientists studying the Cape rock-jumper say the bird has an unlikely ally that boosts its chances of raising chicks: wildfires. Krista Oswald, whose findings were published this month in the journal Ibis, found that rock-jumpers suffered significant "nest failures": 16 out of 17 nests saw no chicks survive during one particularly bad season in Blue Hill Nature Reserve in 2017, mainly due to hunting by snakes. But things changed after wildfires swept through South Africa’s Western Cape Province that year, including part of the reserve. Rock-jumpers started moving into the newly-burnt area, which had previously been uninhabited by the birds, and there were higher rates of nestling survival. (via RFI)
5. Birds cannot see glass as a solid object, but only recognize what is reflected in it. Whether it is a tree or a piece of the sky, they do not identify the obstacle as a danger and as a result collide with it, with the risk of dying. Academics estimate that, in the United States alone, between 100 million and one billion birds die yearly in building related collisions, while in Canada, the number is around 25 million. Although specific data is difficult to obtain, it is clear that the migration period is the most dangerous for the birds, as they find themselves in front of tall buildings in unknown territories. Glass being the main problem, it is possible to find variants in the market that make it easier for birds to identify a glazed surface, including options that make it visible to them without distorting what humans see. (via Arch Daily)
6. As a large grassland, the Flint Hills are vital to ground-nesting birds. As a natural north-south corridor, the Flint Hills are an important migration route for shorebirds, such as American Golden-Plovers and Killdeer. Greater Prairie-Chickens once ranged across the grasslands of the eastern United States to the Front Range of the Rockies, but like the tallgrass itself, that range has shrunk to a sliver. The Flint Hills, with 90 species of grasses and 600 wildflowers, is the largest unbroken remnant of the tallgrass prairie. Today, only about 4% of tallgrass prairie remains, two-thirds of that lies in the Flint Hills of eastern Kansas and Oklahoma. Increasingly, wind turbines are popping up on horizons around the Flint Hills. That creates a dilemma for conservationists such as Brian Obermeyer, who favor renewable energy to fight climate change but also treasure unbroken expanses of vanishing ecosystems such as the tallgrass prairie. How to accommodate two competing views of what it means to conserve nature? Obermeyer and his colleagues at The Nature Conservancy have a plan. (via Living Bird)
By Jonathan Fiely, Greater Prairie-Chicken.
7. As more solar energy systems are installed across the United States, scientists are quantifying the effects on wildlife. Current data collection methods are time-consuming, but the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory has proposed a solution. The lab has been awarded $1.3 million from DOE's Solar Energy Technologies Office to develop technology that can cost-effectively monitor avian interactions with solar infrastructure. The three-year project, which began this spring, will combine computer vision techniques with a form of artificial intelligence (AI) to monitor solar sites for birds and collect data on what happens when they fly by, perch on or collide with solar panels. (via Tech Xplore)
Bird Photo of the Week
By Hap Ellis, Egrets in early light. “Into Nature Through the Page” (via The Wall Street Journal)
Are you an avid birder and photographer? Submit your photos to our Photo of the Week! Include a short summary of when and where your photograph was taken, what kind of bird, and anything else you’d like to share. Send submissions to our editor Lisa at birdnewsitems@gmail.com.
Bird Videos of the Week
By Tampa Bay Times, “In Tampa, the pigeon men flock to a beloved sport”.
Cornell Live Bird Cam “Pileated Woodpeckers”.
Cornell Live Bird Cam, “Red-Tailed Hawks”.