1. Feel good start this Saturday: Something had drawn a crowd of bundled-up onlookers to a snowy spot just off the main road that runs through Ontario’s Algonquin Provincial Park. We all might well have been the anxious audience for Punxsutawney Phil, waiting with bated breath in anticipation of whether the famous Pennsylvania groundhog would see its shadow. Except we were 200 miles north of the U.S. border in the boreal forest of Ontario. And the crowd was staring upward, intently, into the boughs of balsam firs at the edge of the parking lot. A few soft whistles wafted from behind those trees, a few smiles rippled through the crowd, and then a pair of Canada jays — fluffy medium-sized birds that themselves seemed bundled up in charcoal gray jackets — floated down to a snowbank just a few feet away. The onlookers gushed with joy. The jays were showered with offerings of bird seed and bread, as if they were deities. (via The New York Times)
2. And then a look at a most basic question: Have you ever looked up to see a hawk soar overhead, or a small chickadee flit by and wondered: How do they do that? Believe it or not, scientists never really knew either—until now. Talia Lowi-Merri is a Ph.D. student at the University of Toronto in Canada. She says bird flight has everything to do with the shape and size of a bird’s sternum, or breastbone. Bird sternums have a projection from the middle called the keel, and this is where the flight muscles are attached. But why does it vary so much in shape and size relative to the body? Merri set out to find some answers using a database of CT scanned sternums from 105 different bird species, like the Red-capped lark, Leach’s Storm petrel and the Southern cassowary. She also included two extinct birds: the Dodo and the Great auk. (via Scientific American)
3. We can only hope: Mr. James is on a mission to see that national motto, Latin for “out of many, one,” fully realized. His aids in this effort are often robins, starlings, sparrows, and yellow-rumped warblers. He conducts a monthly “Birding on the Hill” walk for legislators and their staff members, a program he’s led since 2019. “Birds are a way to just bring us to a shared purpose, a shared history, a shared humanity so that some of these more difficult conversations ... can happen with that shared ground – humanity, history, and the joy of birds.” So far, about three dozen members of Congress have been on a Tykee James-led walk. A typical outing has between two and 12 Hill staffers or legislators, Democrats and Republicans. The hourlong early-morning expeditions provide an opportunity to learn basic birding techniques, identify bird species, and just talk outside the halls of Congress, away from intense policy discussions. (via Christian Science Monitor)
4. Airlines are contending with an unexpected consequence of the pandemic: a rising rate in bird collisions. Called “bird strikes” in the industry, such collisions are rare, but potentially dangerous. A flock of birds crippled both engines of the jet that Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger safely ditched in the Hudson River in 2009. Most collisions are less catastrophic, but airports and pilots train extensively to avoid them. Airport executives, safety agencies and wildlife biologists blame quiet airports over the past two years for the rising rate of strikes. Airports handled many fewer flights, and in some cases, smaller fields weren’t used at all for long stretches. Birds moved in, nesting atop parked aircraft, inside engines and on unused gear like passenger bridges and boarding stairs. (via The Wall Street Journal)
5. Good news for migratory birds: As birds leave their North American breeding grounds each fall, some stop in Central America, others continue on to the Amazon Basin, but others go further still. About 40 species—Hudsonian Godwits, Whimbrels, Willets, Elegant Terns, Red Knots, and more—journey to Chile from as far away as California, New England, and Alaska. There they bask along some 4,000 miles of coastline and feed in rich wetlands and fisheries supported by the nutrient-loaded Humboldt Current. Now, these long-distance migrants and the rest of Chile’s avifauna will have stronger protections. On January 20, Chile’s undersecretary of the environment signed a new National Strategy for the Conservation of Birds, which—while not a law—offers a concrete plan through 2030 for both assessing the status of Chilean birds and protecting them across species and habitats. (via Audubon Magazine)
6. And then there is this: With a surface larger than all the continents together, the Pacific Ocean is the most extreme environment a migratory bird can encounter. Yet there are several bird species that conquer this enormous body of water almost routinely. In the latest issue of the scientific journal Ornithology, migratory bird researchers from the Netherlands, the United States and Canada provide a synthesis of all the knowns, and especially the many unknowns about the extreme performances of migratory birds such as bar-tailed godwits, whimbrels and red knots, which fly over the Pacific Ocean. (via Science Daily)
7. Imitation is the highest form of flattery: The barn owl’s tail has an unexpected role in flight by making the bird more aerodynamic, which may have implications for drone design. In aeronautical engineering, anything that provides lift – essentially anything that helps an object stay airborne – usually comes at a cost of drag. This is because an object that offers lift creates a barrier that requires the flying object to use more energy to keep moving forward through the air, says James Usherwood at the Royal Veterinary College in Hatfield, UK. Because the barn owl’s tail provides lift – while also helping to control stability and direction – Usherwood and his colleagues assumed it would also create drag. But their lab experiments found this was not always the case, when considering the bird as a whole. (via New Scientist, RVC)
8. Age-old challenge: The fear of predators alone is enough to halve a bird population in just four years, a study in Canada suggests. Predators slow the population growth of their prey by killing and eating them, but how their presence affects the behavior of their prey is little understood. To simulate the presence of natural predators, Liana Zanette at Western University in Ontario and colleagues hung speakers from trees in 104 territories of wild song sparrows across five islands in British Columbia, Canada. In 51 of the territories, the researchers used the speakers to expose the sparrows to the vocal calls of their predators, including hawks, raccoons and ravens. In the other 53 territories, the speakers were used to play the vocal calls of harmless species, such as geese. (via New Scientist)
9. On the mega-rarity front: Perhaps a frightful storm or a faulty compass led the migratory bird awry, but one way or another, it ended up far from home, and alone. Feathers ruffled, the well-traveled vagabond plopped down for a snack in the one yard in town that was sure to turn it into a celebrity. Andrew Bradshaw, a wildlife biologist in Palo Alto who makes a living looking for birds in the Bay Area and was rewarded by the rare dove that landed in his yard last week. Noticing that his visitor was significantly larger than the mourning doves that frequent his birdfeeder, Bradshaw reached for his phone to search an official bird catalog. He identified the red beady eyes, scaly feather patterns and signature black-and-white neck patch as an oriental turtle dove. Native to Siberia and Japan, the bird is so rare a sight in the U.S. that it’s been designated a Code 4 “mega-rarity” by the American Birding Association. Until now, it’s only been spotted in California twice. (via Mercury News)
10. Golfin’ Goffin’s: Tool use is rare in animals, and particularly compound tools where two elements are fixed together, such as a spear, or an axe, or composite tools, where two items — for example a stick and a rock — are used together. These types of tools have evolved into recreational activities, such as hockey, cricket or golf, and it was this that inspired the study design. In their experiment, researchers at the University of Veterinary Medicine, in Vienna devised a game of golf for one species of bird, the Goffin's cockatoo, which is known for its problem solving skills and its ability to use single tools such as sticks to open up nut and seed shells. The birds had to manipulate a ball through a hole into a closed box, and then use a stick to push the ball to one side of the box where it triggers a trapdoor mechanism. This in turn releases a cashew nut for the bird. (via Science Daily)
11. And a feel good end to this Saturday’s edition: A British gardener has formed a unique friendship with a robin named Bob whom he visits at least twice a week. Owing to Bob’s love for the camera, the pair have become world-famous for their heartwarming garden antics. Tony Putman, 39, who lives in the English town of Crowborough, East Sussex, met Bob in his hometown of Edenbridge, Kent, in early November of 2019. “Bob is a European robin. He lives at one of my jobs, where I work two days a week,” Putman told The Epoch Times by email. “I can, and do, visit Bob whenever I can if not working.” When Bob hears Putman’s truck coming, he will greet him right at the gate. “Bob has, and will, land on my head if he wants. I can walk right up to him and he won’t be concerned by me at all,” the gardener said of their bond. (via The Epoch Times)
12. Oh wait! If you have time, you’ll find this podcast amusing: Birds Aren’t Real, a conspiracy theory with an apparently absurd premise, has become surprisingly popular in the past few years. But its followers were in on the joke: The movement’s aim was to poke fun at misinformation … by creating misinformation. Has it been successful? A new podcast Hosted by Annie Correal for The New York Times tells all. (via The New York Times)
Bird Photo of the Week
Photo By Hap Ellis, Reddish Egret.
Bird Videos of the Week
By BBC Earth, “Noddy Birds’ Courtship Rituals”.
Cornell Live Bird Cam - Brown Creeper.
Cornell Live Bird Cam -Dove Sighting.