1. This is the weekend! (For the “Great Backyard Bird Count): The Great Backyard Bird Count will connect scientists and the public around the world through bird watching from Friday, Feb. 16 to Monday, Feb.19 before the annual spring bird migration. Planned by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, the National Audubon Society and Birds Canada, the GBBC is an annual birding event where participants birdwatch and remotely submit their observations to a database. Since its inception in 1998, the GBBC has gone global, with an estimate of more than 555,000 participants last year. Participants only have to birdwatch for a minimum of 15 minutes from any location — even from the comfort of one’s backyard — and submit observations. Participants can benefit from connecting with nature and observing wildlife, and scientists can benefit from receiving new data. (via The Cornell Sun)
2. And here’s a “primer” on the GBBC from the project manager at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology: Watching Birds lifts my spirits, as it has for decades, and who couldn’t use their spirits lifted right about now? But there’s another much bigger potential benefit, which is that sharing my sightings helps scientists understand what’s going on with bird populations in a changing world. One of my favorite citizen-science efforts, a global project called The Great Backyard Bird Count, is coming up Feb. 16-19, and its project manager is here today with tips on using the latest technology like the Merlin app, along with our old-school observational powers to improve our bird ID skills. Becca Rodomsky-Bish manages the annual Great Backyard Bird Count, a collaboration founded in 1998 between Cornell Lab of Ornithology, where she works, the National Audubon Society and Birds Canada. (via A Way to Garden)
As is this: The tradition of a February celebration has long been part of human history. A Carnival period, often in July, is a major tradition in many parts of the world, and New Orleans is famous for its Mardi Gras part of the February festivities. Here in the North, we bird watchers can also feel the February blahs. But luckily, we have our own “Mardi Gras” equivalent to look forward to. It’s called the Great Backyard Bird Count. The truth is, you can report birds you see anywhere, not just in your backyard. And it’s super easy. Just go to birdcount.org. (via Penobscot Bay Pilot)
3. A leucistic raven captivates: Throughout the fall, a rare white raven breakfasted at a McDonald’s and lunched at a Wendy’s in Anchorage, Alaska. Photographs confirmed word-of-mouth reports; a Facebook group that now has more than 20,000 followers is regularly updated with the raven’s whereabouts. On a gray weekend day in November, the bird showed up on a dumpster near the Wendy’s, then on various lampposts, roofs, and snow mounds. Each time it moved, a small group of people followed. “People in Anchorage see ravens all the time, and here, we’re very used to ravens,” Rick Sinnott, a retired Anchorage-area wildlife biologist who still lives in the town, told me, “but they’re black ravens.” Birds as dark as silhouettes bob down the streets. The ravens are so abundant that you might not see them unless you’re trying to, or unless one is white. (via The Atlantic)
4. As does a celebrity (and very rare) duck in Utah: A rare bird has made its way to Utah — and it’s not the first, according to the Division of Wildlife Resources. This particular Mandarin duck has become a frequent flyer a Layton duck pond over the past few weeks, an ocean away from its natural habitat in East Asia, according to eBird. The colorful but typically elusive type of waterfowl has returned to this same pond for years, with different documented Mandarin duck sightings dating back to at least 2002. Adam Brewerton, a wildlife conservation biologist with DWR, said that while the birds are rare in the North American wild, they’re a common enough domestic duck that, over time, enough have seemed to escape and live out their lives locally to create an “established breeding population” along the Wasatch Front. (via Salt Lake Tribune)
5. Finding a common ancestor that lived 130 million years ago: A multi-institutional, international team of evolutionary biologists, genetics specialists and phylogenomicists has found evidence that bird species began diversifying long before the dinosaurs went extinct. In their project, reported in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the group analyzed the genomes of hundreds of species of birds to create a high-resolution evolutionary tree for Neoaves. Prior research has suggested that the asteroid that struck Earth millions of years ago not only killed off the non-bird dinosaurs, it also set Neoaves (which include 95% of all modern birds) on a path of great divergence. In this new effort, the research team found evidence that the Neoaves divergence path began long before the asteroid struck. (via Phys Org)
6. The genome of “a really interesting, quirky species” can help save it: The mysterious night parrot has long perplexed ecologists and birders – from its presumed extinction in the 20th century, to the triumphant discovery of live birds in Queensland and Western Australia during the 2010s. It’s still one of the world’s most rarely seen birds, with only a handful of photographs and specimens surfacing over the last 20 years. But now, Australian scientists have another feather in their nocturnal cap: they’ve sequenced and annotated the night parrot’s genome. This library of genetic information can now be used to learn more about, and conserve, the night parrot. (via Cosmos Magazine)
7. A new set of research papers on the conservation of Australian birds: What does it mean to save threatened species? How often do we achieve it? And how often do we fail? New research answers these questions for Australian birds. One of the goals of conservation is to reduce the risk of a species becoming extinct. While this might be seen as a low bar for conservation managers, it is seldom achieved. A new set of research papers on the conservation of Australian birds looks at cases of success over the past 30 years and where they have failed over the past 200. Researchers found extinction risks had reduced for 25 bird species and subspecies in at least one of the decades between 1990 and 2020. (via The Conversation)
8. The much-maligned pigeon sheds light on an “enduring question in biology” in this Johns Hopkins study: To many, pigeons seem like little more than trash-eating denizens of the sidewalk without a synapse between them. But scientists from the Johns Hopkins University say that’s wrong. There is new evidence they are, in fact, big brained. And this may be just the information needed to answer a long-running biological question: How did birds and other vertebrates, those with backbones, evolve to fly? “This was a rare event,” said Amy Balanoff, assistant professor of functional anatomy and evolution in Hopkins’ School of Medicine and first author on the published research. “It’s happened only three times.” Flying is the domain of just birds, bats and pterosaurs, the extinct reptilian predator and cousin to dinosaurs that lived during the Mesozoic period, which ended over 65 million years ago. (via The Baltimore Banner)
9. Audubon Florida launches first-ever…flamingo census: They're bright pink, huge and hard to miss. For decades, flamingos have been seen mostly as plastic lawn ornaments. Hurricane Idalia blew in scores of the birds back to our shores. But how many are out there? We ask Julie Wraithmell, executive director of Audubon Florida, about their first-ever flamingo census, which starts Sunday. This is a first. The next Sunday to Sunday, the 18th to the 25th, will be a range-wide survey of flamingos, and anybody can contribute their sighting. After Hurricane Idalia blew through, we actually picked up quite a few flamingos that were likely moving between Cuba and the Yucatan, where they breed, and carried them to Florida. So not only did we have a lot of flamingos in Florida, but they actually swept up the East Coast. (via WLRN News)
10. Going where the food is – a look at winter finches in Maine: Every winter is different. Somehow, it took me most of my life to figure that out. I spent three days in the North Maine Woods last week, and I’m here to report that this winter is vastly different from last winter. The number of pine siskins was outrageous. They outnumbered an insane abundance of white-winged crossbills. Pine siskins and white-winged crossbills were scarce last year. Two years ago, they were abundant. Both species nest in Maine, but many more come down from Canada in some years. It all depends on where they find the best food and weather. This year, Maine’s got what they want. Purple finches nest all over Maine. Some years, including the last one, they abandon Maine in winter. This year, they stayed. (via Bangor Daily News)
11. Searching for owls: We are fortunate enough to have eight different species of owls in the Chesapeake region. Some, like the majestic snowy owl, are winter visitors. Others are permanent residents, such as the screech and great horned owls. Owl watching provides a fascinating look into the lives of these secretive birds. Owls are perhaps the most sought-after species for beginning birders. And it is during the wintertime when you are most likely to encounter one, both due to the lack of leaf cover as well as increased activity during the breeding season. The first thing beginning birders should do is research which species of owl live in your area. What is their behavior, range, and habitat? (via Chesapeake Bay Magazine)
12. Effects of warmer winter weather for birds in northern latitudes? It’s a complex relationship…: Warm winter weather in northern latitudes can have both positive and negative effects on well-known and beloved resident bird species, like the Canada jay, boreal chickadee and blackcapped chickadee. One potential benefit for these species is the milder conditions that can lead to increased foraging success and reduced energy demands related to staying warm. The warmer winter weather could also contribute to better winter survival rates that may result in higher reproductive success during the breeding. For example, the Minnesota Breeding Bird Survey shows the overall population trends of resident bird species such as black-capped chickadee, red-breasted nuthatch, and common raven have increased in Minnesota in recent decades. This could be due, in part, to birds having a better body condition as they enter the breeding season. (via Hometown Focus)
13. Finally, let’s finish with a short poem that came our way this week from a BNI reader:
I like birding in February
You can find snipes in ditches
And killdeer by the ponds
A snow goose wandered by today
Free of any familial bonds
30 Robins alit on a cottonwood
And a lone Cedar waxwing appeared
Seemingly unaware of the Pinyon jays
Roaming the skies with no fear
My feet weren’t too cold but my fingers were numb
And my boots were muddy and snowy
But my spirits were high
And my bird list was showy!
-Birding in February, by Jennifer Griffis
Go birding this weekend!
Bird Videos of the Week
Video by BBC - “The Bowerbirds Grand Performance”.
Cornell Live Bird Cam - Cornell Hawk Nest Cam.
Cornell Live Bird Cam -Downy Woodpeckers.