1. Let's begin with the MIT Technology Review on AI and how it is changing how we study bird migration: A small songbird soars above Ithaca, New York, on a September night. He is one of 4 billion birds, a great annual river of feathered migration across North America. Midair, he lets out what ornithologists call a nocturnal flight call to communicate with his flock. It’s the briefest of signals, barely 50 milliseconds long, emitted in the woods in the middle of the night. But humans have caught it nevertheless, with a microphone topped by a focusing funnel. Moments later, software called BirdVoxDetect, the result of a collaboration between New York University, the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, and École Centrale de Nantes, identifies the bird and classifies it to the species level. Biologists like Cornell’s Andrew Farnsworth had long dreamed of snooping on birds this way. (via MIT Technology Review)
2. Puffin patrols!: A small, rocky island off Iceland is home to the world’s largest breeding colony of Atlantic puffins. When breeding season is in full swing, around 1.5 million adults pair up and nestle into burrows on the grassy seaside slopes above Heimaey island’s rocky cliffs. Once chicks hatch, puffin moms and dads devote about six weeks to caring for their babies, bringing meals of small fish and fending off predators such as seagulls. By late August or early September, the pufflings are mature enough to live on their own. Over four to five weeks, throngs of young birds head off to sea. Their instinct is to head for the open ocean, where they will spend most of their lives. They leave in the dark of night to hide from predators, guided by the moon. (via Science News)
By Hap Ellis, Merlin - Brookline, MA.
3. "It took a trio of fish biologists"...another look at how Birds of Paradise "naturally flouresce": With flashy feathers and fancy moves, birds of paradise are already known for extravagant looks. But a trick that boosts that zing has been overlooked by science, until now. In the right light, natural biofluorescence can intensify the birds’ colors — an insight that, believe it or not, comes from a trio of fish biologists. Thirty-seven of the 45 known species of the bird family Paradisaeidae naturally fluoresce, the researchers report February 12 in Royal Society Open Science. It’s the first survey of biofluorescence for these showy birds, say Rene Martin of the University of Nebraska–Lincoln and colleagues. (via Science News)
3(a) BTW, if you have never heard of the 45 known species of Birds of Paradise, you must get Tim Laman's stunning book Birds of Paradise: Revealing the World's Most Extraordinary Birds.
4. The Great Backyard Bird Count results are in (and they are stunning): 911,000 submissions (Merlin and eBird) - 700,000+ people participated around the world - 155,557 Macaulay Library photos, sounds, and videos - 8,004 bird species identified - 408 community birding events - 214 subregions or countries participated. The Cornell Lab put together a fun "Thank You" video:
5. Microplastics are everywhere - including in bird lungs: Microscopic plastic pollutants drifting through the air are lodging in the lungs of birds, a new University of Texas at Arlington study finds. Researchers worldwide are increasingly alarmed by how pervasive these harmful particles are in the air humans breathe and the food they eat. Shane DuBay, an assistant professor of biology at UTA and co-author of the study published in the Journal of Hazardous Materials, said birds were chosen for the study because they are found in almost every corner of the world and often share environments with humans. DuBay’s team studied 56 different wild birds from 51 distinct species, all sampled from the Tianfu airport in western China. They collected lung samples from each bird and performed two types of chemical analyses. (via Phys Org)
6. "Birds, Sex and Beauty: The Extraordinary Implications of Charles Darwin's Strangest Idea": The New York Times bestselling author of Genome and The Evolution of Everything revisits Darwin’s revelatory theory of mate choice through the close study of the peculiar rituals of birds, and considers how this mating process complicates our own view of human evolution. In all animals, mating is a deal. But few creatures behave as if sex is a simple, even mutually beneficial, transaction. Many more treat it with reverence, suspicion, angst, and violence. In the case of the Black Grouse, the bird at the center of Matt Ridley’s investigation, the males dance and sing for hours a day, for several exhausting months, in an arduous and even deadly ritual called a “lek.” To prepare for the ordeal, they grow, preen and display fancy, twisted, bold-colored feathers. When achieved, consummation with a female takes seconds. So why the months of practice and preparation that is elaborate, extravagant, exhausting and elegant? (via Matt Ridley, Amazon).
By Hap Ellis, Barrow's Goldeneye - Boston Harbor, Boston, MA.
7. Current Biology published a new study by Sarah Fitzpatrick and Tyler Linderoth on the Florida Scrub Jay (and BNI favorite!): Conservation strategies are turning back the doomsday clock in threatened Florida-Scrub Jays—but not without caveats, a new study published in Current Biology shows. In the early 2000s, conservationists proposed a plan to move isolated jays to a region comprising thousands of acres of restored habitat, home to a small community of 13 jays. Translocation, where an organism is moved from one area to another, offers a means to prop up declining populations. Across an eight-year stretch from 2003 to 2010, 51 jays were relocated from fragmented and degraded habitats to a partially restored, contigu ous region of scrubland called the M4 Core Region. (via Phys Org)
8. From Cornell Lab archives, more on the Florida Scrub-Jay (and yes there is a Fitzpatrick connection!): It’s been said that all scientific discoveries begin with someone saying, “Hmm, that’s funny….” That’s what happened in 1969, when the late Glen Woolfenden (Cornell ’53) caught sight of three scrub-jays tending a single nest in the sandy hillocks of central Florida. Three years later, a summer intern named John Fitzpatrick (now the Cornell Lab’s director) joined Woolfenden to begin an extraordinarily productive 35-year collaboration. Now spanning more than four decades, the work of these two scientists blossomed into one of the longest-running studies of any wild organism. (via All About Birds)
9. An Ice Age phenomenon happening again...in New Zealand?: When people arrived on the shores of Aotearoa New Zealand and began to turn the land to their needs, they set in motion great changes. The landscape of today bears little resemblance to that of a mere thousand years ago. More than 70% of forest coverhas been lost since human arrival. Native bush has been replaced by tussocks, scrublands and, most of all, open agricultural land. These changes affected our birdlife dramatically. Some species, like the moa, were simply hunted to extinction. Othersfell directly to mammalian predators. Many species were victims of severe habitat destruction. The loss of suitable habitat remains a key conservation challenge to this day. However, a changing distribution of plants is not a uniquely modern feature. New Zealand has seen equally radical shifts in habitat before – during the Ice Age, which lasted 2.6 million years and ended about 12,000 years ago. (via The Conversation)
10. Three emus and one greater rhea Innovate in this study; ostriches not so much - an interesting study: The ability to innovate implies flexible cognition, and is used as a broad metric of intelligence. Innovation in birds has been intensively studied in the larger and more taxonomically diverse Neognathae clade (particularly crows and parrots) and overlooked in the smaller and more ancestral Palaeognathae clade. The current study provides the first known evidence of technical innovation in palaeognath birds. We tested the ability of nine individuals of three species to move a hole towards a chamber to access a food reward. (via Nature)
By Hap Ellis, Barred Owl - Arnold Arboretum, Boston, MA.
11. NPR had this story on avian flu spreading in the wild: A little over a year ago, Marcela Uhart was walking on the beach in Punta Delgada, Argentina. It was peak breeding session on this peninsula known for its rich marine wildlife. Usually, the salty breeze brought with it the sounds of baby elephant seals calling to their moms in high pitched yells. "This time it was silent," recalls Uhart. "The beaches were just loaded with carcasses. We saw basically every [elephant seal] pup dead. We estimate about 18,000 dead baby elephant seals.” Dead from bird flu. And it wasn't just elephant seals. There were terns – with their yellow beaks and black heads – stumbling about having seizures on the sand. The scene played out again and again in the weeks that followed, up and down the coastline. "It was like birds falling out of the sky, dead," she says. (via National Public Radio)
12. Offshore wind and birds - not sure this idea will help: Offshore windfarms are to be painted black in an effort to reduce the number of birds that die after flying into them. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has launched a four-year trial to paint the wind turbines after officials raised concerns that the government’s plan to increase turbine numbers in the North Sea could spell danger for seabirds. Limited research has been conducted on the number of birds killed this way, but estimates range from four to 18 per turbine per year. A study in Norway which examined the effects of dyeing one wind turbine blade black found it resulted in a 70% fall in associated bird deaths. (via The Guardian)
13. Researchers look at flightless birds and the evolution of "complex traits that lose their original function" in this study: More than 99% of birds can fly. But that still leaves many species that evolved to be flightless, including penguins, ostriches, and kiwi birds. In a study in the journal Evolution, researchers compared the feathers and bodies of different species of flightless birds and their closest relatives who can still fly. They were able to determine which features change first when birds evolve to be flightless, versus which traits take more time for evolution to alter. These findings help shed light on the evolution of complex traits that lose their original function, and could even help reveal which fossil birds were flightless. (via Phys Org)
14. From Australia - rising seas and the beautiful Hooded Plover: Andrew Patterson's binoculars jolt as a fluffy grey ball on spindly long legs rushes out from behind a clump of dry seaweed. "Oh there's a chick, I can see a chick," he says. He spots one, then two, newly hatched hooded plover chicks, darting about the sand on Port Fairy's East Beach in south-west Victoria. "It's always exciting to see the new ones," he says. But what's interesting to him is where the parents have placed the nest, perched on a ledge, about a metre up the dune face. "I've certainly noticed this year that a lot of the pairs are starting to put their nests up on the actual dune rather than on the beach where they normally nest," the hooded plover conservation volunteer says. "Quite a few high tides and large swells have washed eggs away early on in the season and I think the birds are starting to react to that and build their nests a bit higher up.” Despite the threat of predators in the grassy dune, it's a reassuring moment for the volunteers. But it also highlights the growing long-term threat of climate change-fuelled storms and rising seas on beach-nesting birds, notably the endangered hooded plover. (via ABC News)
By Hap Ellis, Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, Arnold Arboretum, Boston MA.
15. This week's Rare Bird Alert - A Yellow Grossbeak in ...Arkansas?: A rare yellow grosbeak, a bird typically found in western Mexico, has captivated birdwatchers from across the United States after appearing at a bird feeder in rural Arkansas. The sighting began last Wednesday when Shianne Hunnicutt posted a photo of the unusual yellow bird on a Facebook birding group. "I was shocked to realize that it was, in fact, a yellow grosbeak, which is a bird that not only has never been seen before in Arkansas, but frankly, is extremely rare anywhere in the U.S.," said Taylor Long, who works remotely for the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and leads bird field trips for the Northwest Arkansas Audubon Society. Hunnicutt, who operates the Berryville ranch, said she initially didn't recognize the bird. Word of the sighting spread quickly, drawing birders from states including Pennsylvania, Indiana, Florida, and North Carolina. (via ABC 5 News Online)
16. Finally, one of our favorite outdoor writers in Maine takes us on an local Audubon bird walk, and points out, among other things, that a guide's ability to identify birds may not be as important as knowing where the bathrooms are!: It was a day of fortune and misfortune. My wife Sandi and I led a Penobscot Valley Audubon field trip last Saturday. We experienced hits and misses for birds the 16 participants hoped to find. As guides, Sandi and I were already nervous about this trip when we began planning a Bangor-area itinerary last fall. Usually, we’d seek winter birds in the forest east of Old Town and the unfrozen waters of the Penobscot River. But it was already apparent that many winter birds wouldn’t be visiting from the far north this year. So, we called the trip “Leader’s Choice,” giving ourselves wiggle room in case conditions necessitated a change of plans. That proved prophetic. Last Saturday was a beautiful day, but it followed weeks of below-freezing temperatures. The Penobscot was mostly ice above Hampden. Furthermore, this winter is largely finch-free. The woods are abnormally quiet. (via Bangor Daily News)
Bird Videos of the Week
Video by The Myrtle Beach Sun News, “Birdwatching at the Trash Dump”.
Cornell Live Bird Cam - Ontario Visitors.
Cornell Live Bird Cam - European Starlings.