1. We’ll begin with a wonderful piece on learning about birds from…the Old Masters: I am an accidental birder. While I never used to pay much attention to the birds outside my window, even being a bit afraid of them when I was a child, I have always loved making lists. Ranking operas and opera houses, categorising favourite books and beautiful libraries – not to mention decades of creating ‘Top Ten’ lists of hikes, drives, national parks, hotels, and bottles of wine. My birding hobby grew out of this predilection. Specifically, out of my penchant for writing down the birds I found in the paintings by the Old Masters.
Hieronymus Bosch, for starters. Bringing my opera glasses to the Museo del Prado in Madrid, I delighted in sitting across the room and counting the birds in Bosch’s painting, today called Garden of Earthly Delights(1490-1510). The triptych, which visualises the fate of humanity in three large panels, is exploding with birds. So far, my list of Bosch birds includes spiralling flocks of starlings amid posing peacocks and pheasants. Closer to the water are storks, egrets and two kinds of herons. A jackdaw and a jay can be identified near a giant ‘strawberry tree’, below which are two spoonbills. And lurking in the trees are three kinds of owls, serving as signs of heresy. (via Aeon)
2. “Project Phoenix” – Smoke, smog and birds: Smog and wildfire smoke aren’t just hard on human lungs — they can be harmful for birds, too. A new initiative created by UCLA and the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County will use community science to learn more about the effects, with a goal of developing strategies to help birds cope with wildfires, air pollution and climate change. Project Phoenix, which takes flight today, will bring together ecologists, atmospheric scientists and everyday people from throughout California. Participants can volunteer as little as 10 minutes a week to document the behavior of birds in their neighborhoods. The data they collect will be analyzed by a team of researchers to gain insights into how birds adapt during different types of smoke exposure. (via UCLA)
3. The great Dexter Filkins reports on Florida’s “vanishing” Grasshopper Sparrow in The New Yorker: The Avon Park Air Force Range, in central Florida, is a noisy place. Most weeks, American pilots practice dropping bombs and firing rockets there, turning old Humvees into clouds of scrap metal and smoke. Last month, a crowd gathered at the range to listen for the song of the Florida grasshopper sparrow—a faint chittering noise that evokes an insect’s buzz, giving the bird its name. As the crowd looked on expectantly, a group of tiny birds, small enough to fit in your palm, ventured tentatively from a pen, looked into the sunshine, and then flew away. The grasshopper sparrow, a modest and eccentric creature that inhabits the prairies of the central and southern parts of the state, is considered the most endangered bird in the continental United States. The birds at the bombing range were part of a program to bring their species back from the brink. (via The New Yorker)
A more detailed report on this effort to save the Grasshopper Sparrow in Florida can be found in “A Wing and a Prayer” by Anders and Beverly Gyllenhaal
4. And speaking of threatened sparrows, a nice piece on saltmarsh sparrows – “…the canary in the coal mine of marsh health”: East Hampton is downright lucky to have a population of saltmarsh sparrows, birds that are vulnerable because of their dependence on a habitat that shrinks with every centimeter in sea level rise: the salt marsh. The sparrows themselves are not so lucky. They’ve lost 75 percent of their population since 1990, according to the American Bird Conservancy, and “without intensive conservation will become extinct by 2050.” The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is assessing whether the bird should be listed under the Endangered Species Act. The determination will be announced next year. Saltmarsh sparrows are endemic to the East Coast. Their full life cycle occurs in the United States. “They spend their summers breeding here and winter in the Southeast United States,” said Ms. Maher. “This is the only population of them in the world.” (via The East Hampton Star)
5. Beautiful pictures of often overlooked female birds from Audubon’s 2023 Photography Awards: Female birds continue to delight and inspire us. From the subtle beauty of a Spruce Grouse hen to the bold russet patches on a Red-necked Phalarope, the female birds featured in this gallery captured the eyes and imaginations of photographers from across North America who entered the female bird category of the 2023 Audubon Photography Awards. Launched in 2021 to call attention to some of the most overlooked birds in the world, the female bird category challenges photographers to focus their cameras and attention on the sex that is too often ignored. Although these shots didn't take any of the top prizes—you can see all of the winners here—we couldn't help but share these equally inspiring images. You can also find more amazing photography from this year's competition in our annual Top 100 review. (via Audubon)
6. Strategies that migratory birds use to track their preferred climatic conditions: In a new study of more than 600 bird species, researchers have identified the different strategies that migratory birds use to track their preferred climatic conditions – also called their environmental "niche" – as the seasons change. According to the study, published in the journal Global Ecology and Biogeography, traits such as a bird’s size and diet can predict which species are likely to frequently seek out newer climates, and which can withstand more extreme conditions. As climate change pushes many species into conditions that they have not experienced before, the researchers say their work could also help scientists understand how animal populations are coping with climate change. (via Technology Networks)
7. Quiz! From this week’s NY Times “The World of Birds”: Language has long been considered the exclusive provenance of humans. But in the animal kingdom, birds, not primates, communicate with the level of vocal complexity and variability closest to ours. Ornithologists have made progress in understanding the rich variety of ways in which birds converse, thanks in part to large and growing databases of bird calls such as one from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, which includes millions of recordings captured by citizen scientists. This summer the New York Times birding project is encouraging readers to try birding by ear. So here’s a quick tour of the avian soundscape. Each bird species has its own distinct set of sounds. (via The New York Times)
8. Flash and Pepa – Piping Plover drama: For its tiny, cutest visitors, Ontario’s summer of love began with a suspected murder and a cheating scandal, and ended with babies born in a lab. In early May — like he had for every summer of his life — Flash settled into Woodland Beach on the 70-kilometre-long coastline of the Township of Tiny, two hours north of Toronto. He was ready for another season of family fun. The four-year-old piping plover was a really, really small, quirky, fluffy white and brown critically endangered shorebird with orange legs. So was his partner, 10-year-old Pepa, with whom he had fallen in love in Tiny. The plover pair were longtime partners, splitting their time between the beaches of Florida and Ontario’s Georgian Bay, where the peninsula of Tiny is nestled. This summer, the non-human snowbirds were tending to their nest, with Flash sitting on the three eggs, while Pepa counted down the 28 days that it took for their popcorn-sized babies to emerge on the beach. When that happened, as is the way of the plover world, Pepa would fly back to Florida, leaving Flash to raise the babies and guide them south to her. Soon after Pepa laid the eggs, he vanished, his chirp never heard again… (via The Narwhal)
9. And speaking of plovers, the Wilson’s Plover needs help in Florida: The Florida chapter of the Audubon Society has petitioned the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission to list the Wilson’s plover, a small shorebird native to the Southeast U.S., as a Threatened Species under Florida’s Imperiled Species Rule. The Wilson’s plover, whose year-round range in the United States is limited to southern Florida coastlines, is estimated to have a Floridian population of less than 1,000 birds. This population decline is driven primarily by human impact – beachfront development and rising sea levels both threaten the limited stretch of coastline the birds call home. Additionally, rising temperatures can cook unsheltered eggs in their nests when adult birds are startled off by beachgoers. (via WGCU News)
10. A quick Bald Eagle refresher from Great Lakes Audubon: While enjoying the great outdoors this summer, keep your eyes to the skies for bald eagles – our national bird. These very large raptors can be found fishing and scavenging along Michigan’s lakes and rivers. Despite their name, bald eagles are not actually bald. Adults have white heads and tails that contrast with their dark brown bodies. Juveniles, which will be leaving their nests this month, have dark brown bodies, heads and tails, with brown and white mottling. Bald eagles have become a popular sight across Michigan and are expanding in southern Michigan as they adapt to nesting in more open and urban landscapes. Recent statewide surveys found approximately 900 breeding pairs in the state. This compares to only 359 breeding pairs in 2000 and 83 in 1980. (via Maine News Advocate)
11. Very grim avian flu piece from Vox: In the last two years, more than half a billion birds have died globally. The cause isn’t deforestation or climate change or the destruction of grasslands — all of which are contributing to the precipitous decline of wild birds — but avian influenza, i.e., bird flu. “The increasing number of H5N1 avian influenza detections among mammals — which are biologically closer to humans than birds are — raises concern that the virus might adapt to infect humans more easily,” three United Nations agencies, including the World Health Organization, warned in a recent statement. “These outbreaks pose ongoing risks to humans.” (via Vox)
12. Also grim – this seabird news from the PNW: Seabirds in the Pacific Northwest — from cormorants to petrels and auklets — are at risk of mass die-offs from a warming ocean, especially during an El Niño or a marine heat wave because of climate change. New research led by the University of Washington uses data collected by coastal residents along beaches from central California to B.C. and Alaska over 28 years to understand how seabirds have fared in a warming climate. What they found was that marine heat waves indirectly lead to massive seabird die-offs between one to six months later. The paper, published July 6 in the journal Marine Ecology Progress Series, measures the magnitude of mortality events above long-term normal. (via Vancouver Sun)
13. Good work in Louisiana: Restoration efforts on three heavily eroded coastal Louisiana islands are rebuilding habitat for Louisiana's state bird, the brown pelican, a needed boost as brown pelican colonies have been on the decline. The Times-Picayune/The New Orleans Advocate reports that the coastal bird habitat has been reduced by coastal erosion, driven by subsidence, sea-level rise fueled by climate change, the 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill, and numerous hurricanes. Louisiana brown pelican colonies have been in deep decline in recent years, Todd Baker, a biologist overseeing barrier island restoration projects for the state’s Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority, told the newspaper. (via Kileen Daily Herald)
14. Finally, we’ll end with a thoughtful opinion piece by former U.S. Treasury Secretary and avid conservationist Henry Paulson in the FT this past week: There is widespread agreement that climate change is an existential threat. But in our rush to address this challenge, our efforts must not heighten another, more immediate one: the global decline of biodiversity. We are losing species at more than 1,000 times the natural rate. If we stay on this trajectory, we risk losing up to half of them by the middle of the century. Science is only just beginning to quantify the magnitude of throwing a complex system like Mother Nature out of balance. But we do know that biodiversity loss poses a fundamental risk to health, prosperity and wellbeing. Sadly, the singular focus on solving climate change has led to the neglect of biodiversity. The alarming result is that many climate efforts inadvertently accelerate nature’s destruction. Take the huge need for solar farms. If not located properly, they will have a big impact on ecosystems and habitats. (via Financial Times)
Bird Videos of the Week
By A Shot of Wildlife, “Things you Need to Know about Pigeons”.
Cornell Live Bird Cam - Osprey.
Cornell Live Bird Cam - Red-tailed Hawks.