Hot Wings.
Bird News Items
1. Let’s begin with the petrel that actually chases hurricanes: A rare seabird that lives on an uninhabited Atlantic Ocean island has an unusual response to hurricanes, new research shows: They fly toward the storms, rather than away from them. It is unusual behavior for birds, which typically avoid hurricanes by flying around them or hiding to protect themselves from strong winds. But biologist Francesco Ventura found that not only are Desertas petrels — pigeon-size seabirds with gray wings and black beaks — unbothered by the storms, they also see them as opportunities to gain an advantage over their prey. (via the Washington Post)
2. Did you know the White-throated Sparrow could be “the world’s most interesting bird”? Neither did we: Could this be the world’s most interesting bird? Sure, it doesn’t look that interesting. In fact, at a glance, it seems like a run-of-the-mill sparrow. It doesn’t live in far-off exotic places, either: It may be outside your window right now. The White-throated Sparrow is common and familiar, hopping on the ground under bird feeders all over the eastern states in winter. It appears by the hundreds during migration in places like New York City’s Central Park and Chicago’s lakefront parks. But this seemingly ordinary backyard bird has a secret identity—or, actually, four secret identities. And it's these multiple personalites that place the White-throat at the center of mysteries scientists are still working out. (via Audubon)
By Hap Ellis, Grasshopper Sparrow - Kennebunk Plains, Kennebunk, ME.
3. Life lists across North America take a hit - the Hoary Redpoll is a Common after all: This week, birders around the world lost one beloved feathered creature from their birding life list. Fortunately, no species went extinct. Instead, this change resolved a long-held misunderstanding about the redpoll finch. On Thursday, the American Ornithological Society—the organization that oversees bird taxonomy—announced that the hoary redpoll finch, a small, plump bird commonly found in the Arctic, will be reclassified as the same species as the common redpoll finch, a smaller bird found in similar habitats. This announcement came as a direct result of a CU Boulder-led study which found that, despite their different looks, very few genetic differences exist between the two types of birds. (via Phys Org)
4. A primer on molting from Audubon: Each year, one of the most important events in every bird's life goes largely unnoticed by even the most dedicated birders. There is good reason: Molting—the replacement of old, worn feathers with fresh plumes—is typically a slow and subtle process, making it hard to detect. But for some species, including many feeder visitors and common park residents, the transformation is awkward and obvious.Click here to see 10 shining examples of birds in ungraceful transition. Feel free to laugh, but have some empathy for all of these ragamuffins: Molting is an essential life event that demands lots of energy, and birds are more vulnerable during the process. (via Audubon)
5. One blade black - a promising answer to “motion smear”: A year ago, a Golden Eagle approaching the Glenrock/Rolling Hills wind farm in Wyoming might have seen a dangerous optical illusion: A turbine’s blades, spinning at more than 150 miles per hour, would appear not as solid objects to be avoided, but as a blur the bird could fly through. Scientists believe this disorienting visual phenomenon, known as motion smear, contributes to the collisions that kill an estimated 140,000 to 679,000 birds per year at wind farms in the United States. The same eagle soaring over the area’s scrubby sagebrush today will see warning signs. Those once indistinct and innocuous-seeming blurs will present clearly as physical masses, signaling to birds that they should steer clear. Such is the hope, anyway, of a study now testing a surprisingly simple tool for making wind farms less hazardous to birds: black paint. (via Audubon Magazine, Summer 2024)
6. 130 teams from 15 countries meet in Malaysia: Last month, Singaporean Senthil Kumar was quietly pacing paths through the woods around the Malaysian hill station of Fraser's Hill with his wife and their two adolescent children, equipped with binoculars and telephoto camera lenses. They were on a mission: to spot and photograph as many different bird species as they could find within two days in competition category with 47 other teams. The Fraser's Hill International Bird Race this year drew a total of 130 teams from 15 countries, including nations as far away as the U.S. and U.K. Such events have been growing in popularity around the region, with Malaysia alone now home to nine other annual bird races besides Fraser's Hill, the country's oldest. (via Nikkei Asia)
By Hap Ellis, Eastern Bluebird - Kennebunkport, ME.
7. Nestlings and the oppressive heatwaves - deadly consequences: In the more than 12 years I’ve been writing this column, not one reader has asked if hot weather kills nestlings. Readers are asking now. Yes, it does. In fact, it’s an epidemic. It’s been abnormally hot in Maine, and the rest of the country has been even hotter. Birds across America’s heartland suffered the most. Species that nest in grasslands and agricultural areas of the Midwest can’t escape the relentless sun by seeking shade. Food supplies wither. Nestlings perish from starvation and dehydration. Birds in hot areas are better adapted to heat, but not this much. Although these losses add up fast, at least the birds die one at a time and avoid a mass loss. Excessive heat can kill off an entire brood at once. Losses mount exponentially. (via Bangor Daily News)
8. Twitcher report - many rare migrants this Spring in the UK: Spring migration is one of the highlights of the year for birdwatchers, but the quality and quantity of arrivals is always dependent on the prevailing weather conditions. For the past two decades, the British Trust for Ornithology and other conservation organisations have collected records of rare and common birds through Birdtrack, allowing birders to input their sightings via an app on their smartphone. BTO scientists then analyse the data and publish the results on their blog. (via The Guardian)
9. “Mongolia sits at a crucial point for two of our planet’s greatest flyways, the East-Asian Australasian Flyway, and the Central Asian Flyway” - Meet the Wildlife Science and Conservation Center of Mongolia: The Wildlife Science and Conservation Center of Mongolia (WSCC) is a non-government organization dedicated to preserving Mongolia’s wildlife and their habitat through research, conservation, and public education. WSCC was registered officially in 2004, is based in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia and is one of Mongolia’s premier wildlife conservation organizations. The mission of the organization is to make a clear contribution into the understanding and preservation of national and regional wildlife species and their habitat resources through implementing science-based conservation activities.
10. Sad news for Chicago’s Piping Plovers: Ever since Monty and Rose captured the hearts of Chicagoans in 2019, piping plovers have become nearly as beloved a part of summer in the city as block parties and Italian ice. That made it all the more devastating when three piping plover chicks died in a span of five days last week. The causes of their deaths haven't been determined, but wildlife experts are exploring the ways the chicks could have been killed and how the surviving birds can be kept safe. Chicago birders and wildlife experts are fiercely protective of the piping plovers, which migrate to the Montrose Point Bird Sanctuary every spring. Safety measures are used to keep the birds safe, but there's only so much that can be controlled. (via Abc 7 Chicago)
By Hap Ellis, Song Sparrow - Kennebunk, ME.
11. This week’s Avian Flu commentary: Over the past couple of years the largest outbreak of avian influenza (h5n1) in recorded history has torn across the planet. The virus, which is deadly to birds, has devastated wild and domesticated flocks alike. Attempts to stop transmission have seen hundreds of millions of birds culled on farms since the strain was first identified in 1996. Wild bird deaths are probably in their millions at least. The danger is that, as the virus mutates, a bird pandemic becomes a human one. Precisely how h5n1 will adapt and spread is impossible to predict. But the time to prepare is now. (via The Economist)
12. And then there’s this from Colorado - extreme heat and faulty PPE equipment expose farm workers to H5N1: Extreme heat may be a crucial factor behind the biggest bird flu outbreak in humans in the US as officials continue to track the virus’ spread. A heatwave in Colorado likely caused personal protective equipment not to work correctly for workers culling poultry infected with H5N1, a highly pathogenic bird flu. Four people have tested positive for H5N1 and a fifth is also expected to have their case confirmed as bird flu, officials said this week. It’s the first time a cluster of human cases of bird flu has been reported in the US. On dairy farms, it has also been difficult for workers to wear PPE, in part because of the heat spreading across much of the US. Colorado confirmed a case of bird flu in a dairy worker earlier this month. (via The Guardian)
13. “Optical foraging theory” - research on foraging niches: When at the edges of their geographic ranges, fruit-eating birds favor foods that more closely match their beak size, researchers report, suggesting that foraging niches (the diversity of food resources a species uses) become more specialized toward the periphery of a species range. The findings may help explain geographic variation in species’ fitness and are important for accurately predicting species’ responses to continued environmental change, which is forcing many populations to live near or outside their historic range limits. Animals feed on a subset of available resources within their environment. Optical foraging theory suggests that species select diets to maximize energy or nutrition. However, environmental stress can force species to alter their diet in ways that are not optimal. Near the edge of their geographic range, species may face restricted diets and resource availability, which could determine species’ range limits. (via Eurasia Review)
14. The power of Merlin - “I started paying more attention to birds after a friend showed me … Merlin, a free app from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology” says this Florida columnist: Sitting on our back deck the other day, I pulled out my phone and instead of reading more news or scrolling through more social media, I opened the Merlin bird app and started identifying the sources of some nearby chirping. Carolina wren, northern cardinal, tufted titmouse … I am not a birder. I guess my mom and dad might’ve been. Mom had several worn bird books, broken down by regions of the country and species of birds, and she kept a hand-written list of what birds she’d seen. My dad couldn’t carry a tune, but he could whistle bird calls and seemingly carry on conversations with birds. Lately, I’ve found myself paying more attention to birds in my backyard and beyond, even starting a “life list,” and getting excited about adding to it. (via The Florida Times — Union)
By Hap Ellis, Birding Kennebunk Plains with a 3-year-old - Kennebunk Plains, Kennebunk, ME.
15. A camera tip from Audubon - “bridge the gap”: As a former birding guide, I’ve photographed birds with everything from my smartphone to point-and-shoots to “serious” (and heavy) camera gear. But when I’d rather be more attentive to birds, while still getting great photos, I head out with my binoculars and bridge camera. Generally costing between $500 and $1,700, these mid-priced cameras “bridge the gap” between standard point-and-shoots and more advanced and expensive camera bodies with their arsenal of interchangeable lenses. They feature a fixed, versatile lens that gives bird photographers what we need most: zoom—far more than what’s standard on a phone or the 3x, 4x, or 10x zoom of a standard point-and-shoot camera. (via Audubon)
16. Finally, a travel tip - The National Audubon Society and the expedition cruise line, HX, are “calling all birders”: In recent years, HX (formerly Hurtigruten Expeditions) has won raves for the sustainability focus it has brought to expedition cruising. To wit, HX was the first cruise line to ban heavy fuel and single-use plastics; it recently launched the industry’s first battery-hybrid-powered vessels; and Dr. Verena Meraldi, a biologist, made history as the first chief scientist hired by a cruise line. This year, HX will donate more than 1,500 cabins to scientists conducting research in the field, and passengers can get in on the act by joining citizen-science projects, such as logging wildlife sightings with eBird and iNaturalist. So it might come as little surprise that the National Audubon Society, America’s leading nonprofit dedicated to bird conservation, announced last week an exclusive partnership with the expedition cruise line. The collaboration will kick off this fall with a series of Audubon Voyages—10 sailings on five itineraries—that will take binocular-toting travelers to Antarctica, Alaska, and the Galápagos Islands. Each sailing will include a trained ornithologist or a team of local naturalist guides and will explore a variety of ecosystems for the chance to encounter rare and endemic bird species. (via Afar)
Bird Videos of the Week
By CBS News Boston, “Flamingo spotted on Cape Cod for the second time this summer”.
Cornell Live Bird Cam - Top Flat chick.
Cornell Live Bird Cam - Cornell Nest