1. For the first time, artificial intelligence (AI) can be used to train computers to recognize individual birds, a task humans are unable to do. "We show that computers can consistently recognise dozens of individual birds, even though we cannot ourselves tell these individuals apart. In doing so, our study provides the means of overcoming one of the greatest limitations in the study of wild birds - reliably recognising individuals." Said Dr André Ferreira at the Center for Functional and Evolutionary Ecology (CEFE), France, and lead author of the study. (via Eureka Alert)
2. Excerpt: Swifts are magical in the manner of all things that exist just a little beyond understanding. They are creatures of the upper air, and of their nature unintelligible, which makes them more akin to angels. Swifts nest in obscure places, in dark and cramped spaces: hollows beneath roof tiles, behind the intakes for ventilation shafts, in the towers of churches. To reach them, they fly straight at the entrance holes and enter seemingly at full tilt. Their nests are made of things snatched from the air: strands of dried grass pulled aloft by thermals; molted pigeon-breast feathers; flower petals, leaves, scraps of paper, even butterflies.” (via The New York Times)
By Hap Ellis, House Finch.
3. Although they look dramatically different, carrion crows and hooded crows are almost indistinguishable genetically, and hybrid offspring are fertile, but the two forms remain distinct mostly due to the dominant role of plumage color in mate choice. When the onset of glaciation in the Late Pleistocene forced European birds to shelter in either southwestern (Iberian peninsula) or eastern (Balkan peninsula) refugia, ancestral crows ended up sheltering in one of these two locations — and began to diverge into separate lineages. In short, they were in the process of speciating. After living apart for millennia, they had become almost completely reproductively isolated from each other. (via Forbes)
4. For people everywhere, whether stacked vertically in city apartments or hewing to horizontal spaces in the suburbs, these months of lockdown have made the world outside the window a new form of theater. This spring, for instance, New Jersey Audubon’s World Series of Birding, an annual fundraising competition that challenges teams to see or hear as many species as possible in a 24-hour period, changed its rules to cope with Covid-19. Each team’s members birded alone (or with a family member) within 10 miles of their homes, and did so in flyway states from Maine to Florida. For those not ready to deal with unheeding humanity, open a window on your computer. The live cams on the internet, rigged for intimate views one rarely gets in the field, are a great way to get to know a species. (via The Wall Street Journal)
5. She may just be among the hottest chicks in New Zealand right now. She features on a popular 24-hour YouTube channel, her photo is regularly in the media, and she has adoring fans all around the world. And, while most of us are locked down or restricted in our movements, she’s about to head off on a four-year international adventure. What’s her name? Well, actually, we can’t answer that – yet. But she is a royal. The young lady in question is a Northern Royal Albatross chick who lives on the southeast tip of New Zealand’s South Island. The Department of Conservation (DOC), along with Cornell Lab of Ornithology, has created a worldwide competition to give this royal starlet a name. Click here to submit your vote on the DOC website. (via Australia Times)
6. As he has for decades, Mr. Kerry James Marshall, 64, has harnessed history, especially the history of painting. In new canvases, are his reimagining of John James Audubon’s landmark series, “Birds of America,” the painstakingly rendered 435 watercolors made in the first half of the 19th century, significant achievements in the fields of both ornithology and art. His first two canvases officially debuted on Thursday in an online show, “Studio: Kerry James Marshall,” at David Zwirner Gallery through Aug. 30. The series itself has been brewing in Mr. Marshall’s mind for eight or nine years, he said, and he began painting the works just before transmissions of the coronavirus accelerated in the United States in March. (via The New York Times)
By Hap Ellis, Short-billed Dowitcher.
7. Primorye, a remote region in the Russian Far East, is a wild and unforgiving place. “The line between life and death here could be measured in the thickness of river ice,” Jonathan C Slaght writes in Owls of the Eastern Ice: The Quest to Find and Save the World’s Largest Owl. In this place where “Russia, China and North Korea meet in a tangle of mountains and barbed wire”, the wildlife biologist searches for the world’s largest owl — the Blakiston’s fish owl — an endangered species for whom the river ice is thinning fast. The book is Slaght’s account of his five-year quest to study and ultimately protect the Blakiston’s fish owl. With a wingspan measuring 2 metres, the Blakiston’s fish owl is a giant. In spite of its size, or perhaps because of it, this reclusive bird is secretive and difficult to locate. (via Financial Times)
8. August, of course, is the peak of summer — a month of hot, buggy days and sultry nights. But for many of Georgia’s migratory birds, August might as well be fall. By the time the season actually starts, their “fall” migration will be over. One of them is the orchard oriole, a slim black-and-chestnut colored songbird that occurs across Georgia during the spring nesting season. In mid-July, some orchard orioles in Georgia already were heading back south; now, they are arriving in Costa Rica and as far south as Colombia to spend the winter. More will be leaving over the next few weeks, and by late August, nearly all orchard orioles will be gone from Georgia — fully ensconced in their winter haunts well before fall’s arrival on Sept. 22 in North America. (via Atlanta Journal Constitution)
Bonus: Engineers have developed four-winged bird-like robots, called ornithopters, that can take off and fly with the agility of swifts, hummingbirds and insects. They did this by reverse engineering the aerodynamics and biomechanics of these creatures. Existing drone configurations rely on propellers and static wings. Ornithopters flap their wings to generate forward thrust. The complex relationship between aerodynamics and wing movements allows birds and insects to fly in ways that are impossible for conventional drones. (via Science Alert)
Bird Photo of the Week
By Hap Ellis, Bonaparte’s Gull.
Bird Video of the Week
By The Washington Post, “The crane that fell for her keeper”.
Cornell Live Bird Cam, “Savannah Ospreys”.
Cornell Live Bird Cam, “Northern Royal Albatross”.