1. Let’s begin in East Africa and the sacred connection with birds in the Nuer life: The Nuer are a large pastoralist community living in western Ethiopia and South Sudan in east Africa. They rely on livestock keeping and have special beliefs and customs about how to live with nature. These are passed down from parents to children through the telling of stories. Uncommonly for east African pastoralists, the Nuer live in an expansive, low-lying floodplain. This Gambella region is shaped by the convergence of several rivers originating in the Ethiopian highlands. Its wetlands and lush greenery offer a unique habitat that supports both the Nuer and a wide variety of birds and other wildlife. The people have a centuries-old cultural connection with the local biodiversity. A new collaborative study involved Ethiopian and European scientists from diverse fields (such as ornithology, ethno-ornithology, biodiversity and nature conservation). (via The Conversation)
2. The New Yorker has a long article on decoding bird song – worth reading in full: Geese maintain elaborate social structures, travel in family groups, and can navigate from Sweden to Spain. In a fight, an unpartnered greylag goose has a higher heart rate than a partnered one, and the heart rate of a recently widowed goose can remain depressed for about a year. These birds have things to discuss. Still, geese are not the Ciceros of the bird world. A lyrebird sings long, elaborate songs; ravens really can say “nevermore.” Geese are known for nasal honks. How much nuance can there be in a honk? Greylag geese, it turns out, have at least ten different kinds of calls. (via The New Yorker)
By Hap Ellis, Red-tailed Hawk – Wells Reserve at Laudholm, Wells, ME.
3. Remember the 1996 movie “Fly Away Home”? Here is a real-life sequel: Inspired by a classic movie, conservationists are teaching endangered Northern Bald Ibises to fly south for the winter Parenting a flock of Northern Bald Ibises is a demanding job. For the past six months, biologists Barbara Steininger and Helena Wehner have spent every day hand-feeding and raising dozens of these endangered chicks. They couldn’t pass their fostering duties off on anyone else during that time—the juvenile birds needed to imprint on them and them alone. Steininger and Wehner then took to the skies to guide their young charges on the birds’ first migration. In mid-August they climbed onboard a microlight aircraft in Rosegg, Austria, to start their approximately 2,800-kilometer journey, which ended on October 3 at a wintering site in Andalusia, Spain. There the two foster parents said their final goodbye to the birds that they helped raise. (via Scientific American)
4. A fun piece in the Washington Post on Bird-banding demonstrations: Outside the National Zoo’s Bird House, small white cotton bags hung on hooks, each holding a bird that ornithologist Brian Evans and his team had netted that Saturday morning. Now and then, they squirmed nervously, their feathers rustling as a rapt audience of birders waited. Evans gently lifted one of the bags off its hook and put his hand inside. “So you guys are going to be pretty excited about this. … It is a glorious, exotic bird,” Evans said with a hint of comedy as he pulled it out of the bag like a magician. The birders giggled on seeing the calm, quiet bird, a few of them blurting out, “A house sparrow!” It is one of the most commonly seen birds in the D.C. region even though it is nonnative — originally from Eurasia — and considered invasive, said Evans, an ornithologist at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute. (via The Washington Post)
5. Rehearsing while sleeping?: Scientists tell us that the family dog shuffling its legs while asleep on the floor really is dreaming. And when a bird silently nods off on its perch, it may also dream as its singing muscles twitch. Could it be rehearsing in its sleep? A substantial proportion of bird species are songbirds with specific brain regions dedicated to learning songs, according to University of Buenos Aires physicist Gabriel B. Mindlin. His research examines connections between birds’ dreams and song production—particularly in Zebra Finches, which often learn new sounds and songs, and in Great Kiskadees, which possess a limited, instinctive song-learning capacity. Scientists had previously observed sleeping birds making movements that resembled lip-syncing. (via Scientific American)
6. Hunters Helping Condors: During October, the DWR will be operating a check station where hunters who take actions to help condors can enter to win one of five $800 gift cards donated by The Peregrine Fund for outdoor equipment. After stopping at the check station, big game hunters can enter the drawing by showing the non-lead ammunition they used during their hunt; and providing proof they removed all the remains (including gut piles) of their harvested animals from the field. The Hunters Helping Condors program launched in Utah in 2011 to help recover California condors. These unique, enormous birds were listed in 1967 under the precursor to the Endangered Species Act, and by 1982, only 23 were left in the world (one of which was in captivity), reads the statement. (via Moab Times)
By Hap Ellis, Great Egret – Parsons Beach Marsh – Kennebunk, ME.
7. With a wingspan of 89 feet and more than 5,000 hand-cut metal feathers, this is no “Common” Loon: Standing over three stories high with an impressive wingspan of 89 feet, all constructed from more than 5,000 hand-cut metal “feathers,” the massive installation of Minnesota’s state bird at the entrance to University Park at United Village is far from a “common” loon. Allianz Field’s newest addition is a beautifully designed testament to the state of Minnesota, its people, their strength, and their legacy. Moreover, the hope is that this piece will serve as a galvanizing symbol for this community and the North Star State for years to come. This magnificent work of art, titled The Calling, was conceptualized and created by international artist Andy Scott. (via MNUFC)
8. Latest on the botulism outbreak in the Klamath Basin: An ongoing outbreak of botulism in the Klamath Basin has killed more than 100,000 birds at a wildlife refuge near the Oregon-California border, conservation groups say. The Klamath Basin National Wildlife Refuge, where the outbreak is centered, is a crucial stopover site for migratory birds traveling the Pacific Flyway, and the outbreak this year is the worst in the refuge's history. Botulism thrives in warm, stagnant water and the refuge, which has historically been home to vast wetlands, has been hit hard in recent years by drought and high temperatures, both of which have been made worse by climate change. (via Axios)
9. And then this: at Bird Alley X field hospital, they are doing what they can to help in Klamath: A nonprofit group fights an uphill battle to save the victims of a massive outbreak of avian botulism that continues to ravage waterfowl at one of the Klamath National Wildlife Refuges On a clear, sunny day in early October, January Bill peers under a drop cloth at the latest batch of patients at the Bird Ally X field hospital near the Oregon-California border. The birds—American wigeons, shovelers, and Northern pintails—are clearly sick: Some struggle weakly; some don’t move at all. “They’re at different degrees of paralysis,” says Bill, a wildlife rehabilitator who co-founded Bird Ally X. “We rate it by a stage from one to four, with four being the worst; they are usually 100 percent paralyzed.” (via OPB)
By Hap Ellis, Swamp Sparrow – Millennium Park, Boston, MA.
10. Indian House Crows in Kenya got the “authorities’” and conservation groups’ attention: Kenyan farmer Danson Safari was forced to give up poultry rearing after losing hundreds of chickens to attacks from aggressive Indian house crows which are multiplying along the country's coast. The growing threat has prompted Kenyan authorities and conservation groups to turn to a chemical called starlicide to eliminate the pests while minimising harm to other birds. The invasive species was originally brought to East Africa from the Indian subcontinent in 1891 and researchers estimate that they number almost one million in Kenya today. (via Reuters)
11. If you are a birder and you play guitar (like us!), we all need one of these guitars: When Paul Reed Smith was a young boy, his mother would often take him and his siblings birdwatching, a somewhat popular hobby for some people. Occasionally, she would take a young Paul to the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C., where he was able to check out records, just as you would check out a book in a library and play the records with the window open, presumably to try to attract birds. Paul explained his mother's fascination and knowledge of her avian friends in a post on his website: "My mom really knew and loved birds and exposed us to them. One time there were a few starlings in our backyard and my mom went off, she said, 'This is going to be a problem, those are scouts.' We said, 'What do you mean?' She said, 'They're searching for a place for the entire huge flock.' In the next few days, sure enough, thousands of starlings were in our backyard, terrorizing every other bird in the yard and eating everything.” "My mother called it. She knew what was going to happen. She called them flying rats. It was loud and raucous, and we watched them fight with the cardinals and the robins.” (via Ultimate Guitar)
12. Rare bird alert – in this case a Northern Wheatear on Long Island: Jay Rand of Southold — a self-proclaimed bird and bug nerd of 27 years — went birding in the Narrow River Road area that morning. Not quite ready to hang up his binoculars for the day, on his way home he said he stopped at Truman’s Beach, where he hadn’t birded in a while. He said he saw some royal terns right away and took them as a good sign. “Within 10 minutes, I heard a bird I hadn’t before,” Mr. Rand said. He described it as sounding similar to a horned lark or an American pipet doing a different call than he was used to. Not trusting himself due to the excitement of seeing the 5- to 6-inch bird he’d been hoping to spot for the last few years, Mr. Rand confirmed the identification using the Sibley Bird app and alerted other local birders, including Ben Bolduc, and together, they reported the sighting to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology ebird project and other birding groups in Whatsapp and other platforms. (via The Suffolk Times)
BNI caught up with this Northern Wheatear in Kennebunkport, ME in the Fall of 2022 – Long way from its winter home (Africa!).
13. This week’s avian flu story – the Aussies step up: Australia's government said on Sunday it would spend an extra A$95 million ($64.13 million) to protect against a destructive bird flu strain that has spread through bird and mammal populations worldwide but not yet reached the island continent. Oceania is the last region of the world free of the H5N1 clade 2.3.4.4b avian influenza that has killed hundreds of millions of birds and tens of thousands of mammals since appearing in Asia, Europe and Africa in 2020, littering beaches with corpses and upending the agricultural industry. (via Reuters)
14. Finally, they’ve made a documentary on the “SoCal Snowy” – the Snowy Owl that (miraculously) appeared in Orange County, CA, last year – and united a community: Uncertainty gripped Roy Rausch during the winter of 2022. He stood on the precipice of retirement from a decades-long career in the brewing industry while also coming to terms with the recent death of his father. And he had no idea what life might have to offer moving forward. The lifelong birder couldn’t have predicted that a snowy owl would show up in Cypress that December day, practically on his doorstep and thousands of miles away from the vulnerable species’ arctic habitat. It was the first known appearance of the bird of prey in Southern California in at least 100 years of record, something Rausch and crowds of nature lovers, curious residents, photographers and news crews had to see for themselves. “SoCal Snowy Owl” premieres Friday at the Newport Beach Film Festival. It aims to capture the excitement that swept over Cypress and educate people about the bird of prey’s cultural and ecological significance while telling the stories of Rausch and others whose lives were touched by its visit. (via The Los Angeles Times)
Bird Videos of the Week
Video by Arthur Hogan, “Cranes - Autumn migration of birds. David Attenborough’s opinion”.
Cornell Live Bird Cam - Ruffed Grouse.
Cornell Live Bird Cam - Collared Aracari.