1. Let's start the new year with a reflection on the first bird one sees in January - "Anything can be meaningful if you see it as a sign": The First Bird I saw on the first day last year was a great blue heron or, as my friends call them, great blue motherfucking herons (GBMFH for short). Since I first heard my friend Devon refer to a heron that way, I haven’t been able to see them as anything else. There’s a certain delight to spotting one that doesn’t diminish no matter how many times I come across them. Some mornings I walk to the Willamette River a few minutes from my apartment and see one, then two, then three. Sometimes they wade in the water. Other times they perch nearby. Occasionally they soar gloriously over my head with their wings outstretched, and for a moment I wonder if they’re going to fly right into me. (via Orion Magazine)
2. And then if birds can remember where they store thousands of seeds, why can't we remember where we left our phones or car keys? Fun piece from The New Yorker: Our poor memories can seem mystifying, especially when you consider animals. This time of year, many species collect and cache food to stave off winter starvation, sometimes from pilfering competitors. So-called larder hoarders typically keep their troves in a single location: last year, a California exterminator found seven hundred pounds of acorns in a client’s wall deposited there by woodpeckers. In contrast, scatter hoarders—including some chickadees, jays, tits, titmice, nuthatches, and nutcrackers—distribute what they gather over a wide area. Grey squirrels use smell to help them find their buried acorns. But many scatter hoarders rely largely on spatial memory. People first noticed scatter hoarding by 1720 or even earlier. It’s come under serious investigation, however, only in the past century. Scientists now know that birds’ brains can contain elephantine powers of recollection. (via The New Yorker)
By Hap Ellis, White-throated Sparrow - Millennium Park, Boston, MA.
3. Among the many articles on President Carter this past week, you might not have seen this one: Former US President Jimmy Carter, who passed away at the age of 100 on Sunday, used to go bird watching every time he visited Nepal. Carter, who contributed to bringing Nepal’s peace and democratic process to a logical conclusion, had a completely non-political interest in Nepal. Carter, who visited Nepal five times from 1985 to 2013, allocated time for bird-watching during each visit. According to the Nepali ornithologist who guided Carter on his bird-watching trips, he was a nature lover, but his interest in bird-watching overshadowed his other interests in nature. The 39th President of the United States (from 1977 to 1981) was also an environmentalist and nature conservation campaigner. (via Republican News)
4. "One or two birds a night" - NPR takes a look at the USF&W's plan to save the Spotted Owl: A plan to shoot and kill up to 450,000 barred owls on the West Coast is dividing conservation and animal rights groups. This is part of an effort to save their smaller, threatened cousin, the northern spotted owl. The federal government finalized the plan over the summer after years of discussion. Nate Hegyi from the NHPR podcast Outside/In has the story, and it does including the sound of a gunshot. (via National Public Radio)
5. A fun rundown, or wrap-up, of birding news in Illinois - starting in Las Vegas. Well, why not? A Yellow-billed Loon in a fountain is a fun place to start: A Yellow-billed Loon appeared on the Las Vegas Strip last March, swimming in the Fountains of Bellagio. Fortunately, what happened in Vegas didn’t stay there for long. The daily water show hit pause while biologists captured the Arctic vagrant and took it to a safe place serving fish. One month later, a similar scenario played out in suburban Wilmette. This time, the wayward bird was a young Whooping Crane making her first northward migration. Officials from the International Crane Foundation mobilized quickly to rescue the endangered wader, later releasing it at Horicon Marsh, near ICF’s Wisconsin headquarters. (via Daily Herald)
6. First responders in Toronto...for avian collisions, that is: Every morning at dawn, a dozen volunteers scour the streets of Toronto picking up small birds. Some days they will find hundreds of them, most already dead or dying. A few they are able to save. Live birds are put in brown paper bags and driven to wildlife recovery centres, while dead birds are put in a large freezer. If no one picks them up, their carcasses are swept up by street cleaners.“One of my first days was really horrific,” says Sohail Desai, a volunteer with the charity Fatal Light Awareness Program (Flap) Canada, which has about 135 people patrolling the streets across Toronto. Desai was walking close to his house in the North York area in Toronto when a flock of golden-crowned kinglets flew into a 15-storey glass building. (via The Guardian)
By Hap Ellis, Merlin - Brookline, MA.
7. And then this from Baltimore - If only...: A little after 4:30 a.m. in downtown Baltimore, Nicole Hartig and Jon Merryman spotted their first victim. “We have one bird here,” said Merryman, a veteran volunteer. He snapped photos of the white-throated sparrow while Hartig, 37, placed the bird in its tomb, a crinkling plastic sandwich bag. Merryman, 62, spoke into his phone: “20 S. Charles Street, Northeast corner of the lobby,” transcribing his notes into iNaturalist, an online tracking tool cataloging the group’s work since 2008. Not a poetic obituary. But their 5-mile expedition just began at the peak of fall migration. It’s time to go. (via Maryland Matters)
8. Wisconsin Public Radio has a long - but fun! - podcast on winter birding and traveling with Bill Volkert, a naturalist and wildlife educator for Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources at Horicon Marsh for 27 years: (Podcast) Beloved naturalist Bill Volkert returns to talk about what the neighborhood birds are up to this winter. Bill also shares his recent travels, and gives his advice for trips if you want to sight species in new and exciting locations. (via Wisconsin Public Radio)
9. For New Yorkers, what might be awaiting you when birding this winter: As we enter a new year, we can reflect on so much good and our many blessings in this great country of ours! The list of things to be thankful for is huge. There are a few that stand out such as our freedom and the vast beauty and nature all around us. Winter is upon us officially as I write this column, even though we have had a couple of good winter storms already! What this winter has in store for us is still to be determined. There are several species from the far north that generally make their way to our region. We have had many pine siskins (relatives of the goldfinches) coming through during the fall, and just saw one yesterday. Most go further south. Look for a small, streaked bird at your nyjer feeders. (via Ithaca Journal)
By Hap Ellis, Dunlin - Castle Island, Boston, MA.
10. And from the west coast, CBC visits British Columbia for a Christmas Bird Count: It's Braeden Hallam's second year counting birds during the holiday season. Armed with a pair of binoculars and bird watching apps, he says participating in the annual bird census has been an "exciting and fascinating" experience. Hallam, currently enrolled in a diploma course in fish, wildlife and recreation at the British Columbia Institute of Technology (BCIT), says bird watching is not just about spotting birds but also about contributing to science. "Birds are one of the biggest indicators of ecosystem health," he told CBC News. "By knowing what species are in an area, and in what numbers, we get an idea of the overall biodiversity.” (via CBC)
11. You again! A Steller's Sea Eagle is once again in Eastern Canada (BNI tracked down the last wanderer in Maine in 2021): An extremely rare raptor was recently spotted in eastern Canada — thousands of miles away from its usual territory. The bird, a Steller’s sea eagle, was seen in Terra Nova National Park, located on the coast of Newfoundland, in late December, according to a park news release. Photos posted by the park show the animal — distinguished by its dark brown or black and white plumage and bright yellow beak — perched atop a tall tree on a riverbank. With a wingspan of eight feet and a weight of about 13 pounds, it is one of the largest birds of prey in the world, eclipsing even the bald eagle. Fewer than 5,000 individuals remain in the wild, and they are typically only found in eastern Russia, Japan and Korea. (via The Miami Herald)
12. From Nature, how breeding timing affects migratory strategies for this trans-hemispheric migratory seabird: Long-distance migrants must optimise their timing of breeding to capitalise on resources at both breeding and over-wintering sites. In species with protracted breeding seasons, departing earlier on migration might be advantageous, but is constrained by the ongoing breeding attempt. Here we investigated how breeding timing affects migratory strategies in the Manx shearwater (Puffinus puffinus), a trans-hemispheric migratory seabird with large temporal variation in the onset of breeding. Using a geolocator tracking dataset, we found that that later-laying shearwaters had shorter overall breeding periods, yet still departed later for autumn migration. (via Nature)
By Hap Ellis, Common Eider - Boston Harbor, Boston, MA.
13. In case you missed this story when we covered it last month (as a "murder mystery resolved", NYT), this is a good and quick recap of the actual report of the "mystery" published in Ecology: In January of 2023, researchers put GPS tags on eight Arctic-breeding gray plovers (Pluvialis squatarola). Their hope was to monitor the breeding migration of the birds to learn more about them. Specifically, they were hoping to figure out why this species flew at such high altitudes during their migration. While monitoring the birds, however, something tragic happened. One of the birds was killed. While the data is still being analyzed, it appears that the death took place at 3000 meters (9800 feet) above sea level, making it the highest-known bird attack ever recorded. Researcher Miciel Boom was the lead author of a paper about the event that was published in Ecology. (via Twister Sifter)
14. That time of year for an age-old question: The first day of winter, better known as the winter solstice, brings to mind the seasonal question of to feed or not to feed the wild birds. We have been taught “don’t feed the wildlife” but does that include birds? Humans have always felt an intrinsic connection to birds. Birds are found in our art, our language, our cultural traditions, and our religious ceremonies. Historically, evidence of bird feeding dates to the 6th century, when Saint Serf of Fife tamed a robin by feeding it. Ancient Hindu and Egyptian writings speak of organized bird feeding. Shakespeare references birds 54 times in his many plays. Native Americans hold birds, such as the eagle, owl, and legendary thunderbird, in the highest spiritual regard. (via Denver Post)
15. And finally an "Extra" of a sort from Science Daily about bats - not birds - "surfing" storm fronts during long-distance migrations: Birds are the undisputed champions of epic travel -- but they are not the only long-haul fliers. A handful of bats are known to travel thousands of kilometers in continental migrations across North America, Europe, and Africa. The behavior is rare and difficult to observe, which is why long-distance bat migration has remained an enigma. Now, scientists have studied 71 common noctule bats on their spring migration across the European continent, providing a leap in understanding this mysterious behavior. (via Science Daily)
Bird Videos of the Week
Cornell Live Bird Cam - Ontario Feeder.
Cornell Live Bird Cam - Barred Owl Cam.
Thanks for sharing. Bird feeders are everywhere in the gardens of the UK - is there a reason not to feed birds during the winter?