1. Let’s start with the wonderful pictures in this Smithsonian article: It’s a radiant morning, and the zoo is filled with birds. Robins bathe in a waterfall. Pigeons peck at a discarded slice of pizza. Mallards circle around an artificial pond. Near a fence, strollers pause as chubby fingers point at the flamingos. These creatures from the Caribbean are sleeping—balanced on one leg, long necks twisted backward, bills nestled into cotton-candy feathers. “Everybody loves the colorful ones,” says Sara Hallager, bird curator at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute. “I happen to like brown ones.” Along the path hops a tiny wood thrush, the official bird of Washington, D.C. “See? A brown bird. But he’s got that spotted breast and that beautiful song.” (via Smithsonian Magazine)
2. You gotta love peregrines – especially females protecting their young – the winning “Bird Photographer of the Year” pic captures the moment: A striking photo of a female peregrine falcon fiercely defending her young was the top winner of the 2023 Bird Photographer of the Year contest. Selected from over 20,000 images, this bird of prey attacking a brown pelican that was too close to her nest earned American photographer Jack Zhi the title of Bird Photographer of the Year. “For four years, I attempted to capture the rare sight of the female falcon attacking large brown pelicans with incredible speed and agility,” shares Zhi. “I love the eyes of the pelican in this image—surprised and scared. The action was fast and over in the blink of an eye. But I’ll remember that moment forever.” (via My Modern Met)
3. Fall migration – go birding, says the New York Times: Our understanding of birds has been profoundly shaped by the work of everyday people. After all, anyone can step outside and pay attention to an untamed world swooping above. We’re inviting readers, both new and experienced birders, to participate in a science project we are working on with the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. We will be gathering observations about the birds around us, filling in data gaps and giving researchers a clearer picture of biodiversity. It’s important work. Nearly half of all bird species worldwide are known or suspected to be in decline, and climate change could accelerate this trend. By gathering data like this, you’ll help inform decisions about the conservation and study of birds. (via The New York Times)
4. “Lights Out” St. Louis – hooray for the NPS: In an effort to support the annual migration of birds, the National Park Service will extinguish the exterior lights of the iconic Gateway Arch for the entire month of September 2023. The Gateway Arch typically lights up the night sky with its stunning illumination. The NPS shows stewardship of migratory birds that rely on the Mississippi River corridor during their journey south for the winter. According to the NPS, approximately 40% of the nation's migratory waterfowl use the Mississippi River corridor during both their spring and fall migrations. (via KSDK News)
5. We talked about Flamingos popping up all over Florida last week, but Ohio? More Hurricane Idalia fallouts: When you think of flamingos, the images that come to mind are probably of African water holes, the Caribbean, Florida – or almost anywhere else other than Waynesville, Ohio. So, when Jacob Roalef saw Facebook posts about flamingos at Ceasar Creek State Park, near Dayton, last week, he rushed to see them for himself. “I quickly grabbed my gear and told my wife and was out the door,” Roalef, who leads birdwatching tours, told CNN. When he got there, he saw two birds – an adult and a juvenile – in the lake. “The flamingos were just hanging out and sleeping in about a foot of water near the shore,” Roalef said. (via CNN)
6. 10 billion chickens – yikes!: If future humans were to guess which animal we most revered, depended upon, and loved, it would not be our cat and canine companions, noble horses, or overworked cows. It would be chickens. Chickens outnumber all other wild birds on the planet. Last year, humans raised more than 85 billion of them for food, just under 10 billion of them in the United States. Never before in human history has such a species been so numerous. And never before has the fate of one species been so closely tied to our own. What might it mean for us, then, that this most essential animal has begun dying from a virus by the tens of millions—dropping dead so quickly that many never have a chance to develop symptoms? And what does it mean that the disease they’re dying from is the same one that experts have long worried might kill us? (via The Orion)
7. 150 million years ago – “this is really a weird animal within the group of birds”: One hundred and fifty million years ago, a young, bantam-sized, bird-like dinosaur became mired in a swamp in what is now southeastern China, and succumbed. Its fossilized remains, unearthed in 2022 and named Fujianvenator prodigiosus, show it to be one of the earliest bird-like dinosaurs to date from the Jurassic period. The researchers describe their discovery in a paper published today in Nature. “This is really a weird animal within the group of birds,” says Mark Loewen, a palaeontologist at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, who was not involved in the discovery. The creature had oddly lanky legs and might have lacked the ability to fly. It also doesn't seem to conform to the accepted bird-evolution story. (via Nature)
8. 340 million birds – can this be so?: The great irony of roadkill is this: Its most conspicuous victims tend to be those least in need of saving. Simple probability dictates that you’re more likely to collide with a common animal— a squirrel, a raccoon, a white- tailed deer— than a scarce one. The roadside dead tend to be culled from the ranks of the urban, the resilient, the ubiquitous. But roadkill is also a culprit in our planet’s current mass die- off. Every year American cars hit more than 1 million large animals, such as deer, elk, and moose, and as many as 340 million birds; across the continent, roadkill may claim the lives of billions of pollinating insects. The ranks of the victims include many endangered species. (via The Atlantic)
9. A primer on a beautiful hawk – coming this Fall in “kettles” near you (if you live in the west): Oklahoma Birder, Randy Mitchell is featuring the Swainson’s Hawk this week as this bird will be moving through the state in great numbers during the next five or six weeks. However, the vast majority of Swainson’s hawks will migrate through the western half of Oklahoma, as this is a bird of the Great Plains and the American West. Additionally, the Ada area lies on the eastern border of the bird’s summer range and the eastern edge of its migration route. Starting in late August and into September, nearly the entire population of Swainson’s hawks migrates from North America to Argentina. The peak of fall migration for these birds in Oklahoma is late September. He will be keeping my eyes to the skies during this fall’s migration to document how many Swainson’s hawks he can see. and on that note, if you see one, please send him an email (rnw@usa.com) and let me know, if you have time. (via The Ada News)
10. Success with SOSGEP (hint: Golden Eagles, Scotland): A conservation project to move golden eagles to southern Scotland has helped the population reach record numbers. There are now about 46 birds in the area - the highest figure recorded in the area for centuries. Eight chicks were brought to the secret location near Moffat this summer to bring numbers to the current level. When the South of Scotland Golden Eagle Project (SOSGEP) began five years ago it was thought that only three breeding pairs remained in the area. The latest chicks came from the Scottish Highlands, Perthshire, Angus and the Scottish islands. (via Yahoo! News)
11. Yet another shout-out to Merlin’s “Sound ID” feature: I was sitting in solitude earlier this summer in an Adirondack chair in my backyard, when I realized I wasn't as alone as I'd thought. Thanks to the app I'd just downloaded on my phone — the popular and free Merlin Bird ID — I learned just from listening that I was surrounded by more than a dozen species of birds. Where before I had simply heard birdsong, I now realized how rich the variety was in that single moment. I ran Merlin's “Sound ID” feature for half an hour. As the minutes passed, more birds joined the list. Chimney swift, northern flicker, fish crow, killdeer, Baltimore oriole and gray catbird among them. One bird had a red dot next to its name; it was a veery, a warm-colored thrush, and the dot meant it was a rare sighting. Then a great horned owl appeared on my screen, again with a red dot. Who knew all these birds could be in one yard? (via ABC News)
12. The importance of diversified farms: It seems intuitive that forests would provide better habitat for forest-dwelling wildlife than farms. Yet, in one of the longest-running studies of tropical wildlife populations in the world, Stanford researchers found that over 18 years, smaller farms with varying crop types – interspersed with patches or ribbons of forest – sustain many forest-dependent bird populations in Costa Rica, even as populations decline in forests. The steepest declines were found in forests, then in intensive agriculture (and the species succeeding in intensive agriculture were often invasive). But on diversified farms, a significant subset of bird species typically found in forests, including some of conservation concern, actually increased over time. (via Stanford News)
13. Another good piece on things everyone can do to protect birds: “The Rufous hummingbird lost two-thirds of its population since 1970, according to the 2022 State of the Birds report. These tiny creatures are one of 70 bird species on the “Tipping Point” list that will lose another fifty percent of their populations in the same time frame if conservation doesn’t improve. That list includes such flying beauties as the Golden-winged warbler with its stunning yellow cap and black mask. The reasons, scientists say, are multi-fold: habitat loss from climate change and human development, glass collisions, invasive species (domestic cats) and pesticides; many of the same reasons all wildlife globally have plummeted. So why should we care that birds are disappearing? One reason, says Parr, is their losses are a harbinger of what human beings face too. (via CBS 58 News)
14. USF&WS on its MAPS program: The name may be a mouthful, but monitoring avian productivity and survivorship, also called MAPS, is just a fancy name for keeping track of the health of our bird populations. Sorry, no lions or tigers or bears here. The MAPS program is a continent-wide effort organized by The Institute for Bird Populations. The program has been running since 1989 and includes hundreds of stations spread across the United States and Canada and managed by public agencies, non-governmental organizations and individuals. Each station follows established protocols to capture, band, and collect data on local birds. The MAPS station run by Kodiak National Wildlife Refuge staff and volunteers at the Buskin River State Recreation Site is currently the only active MAPS station in Alaska. It has been operating since 2010 and more than 2500 birds have been banded in Kodiak so far. (via U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service)
15. And speaking of the USF&WS, they released their 2023 duck breeding survey results: Devoted duck hunters across Acadiana, Louisiana and the rest of the country more than likely waited much of the long, hot summer for the official estimates for waterfowl numbers in the principal breeding areas of North America. Chances are many of them might be disappointed with the U.S Fish and Wildlife Service duck population report for 2023. Overall, the total count estimates show 32.3 million breeding ducks in the traditional survey area of Alaska, Canada and north central United States, a 7 percent drop from the estimate of 34.7 million in 2022 and 9 percent below the long-term average since 1955, according to the results released recently by the federal agency. (via The Daily Iberian)
16. Check this out - August stats from eBird: In August 2023, 96,787 eBirders worldwide contributed more than 1,272,988 checklists of birds through eBird.org and eBird Mobile. The number of eBirders outside of the US and Canada is up 26% over August of last year. The total number of eBird observations is now more than 1,515,288,495. You can stay tuned with the current number of species, checklists, and users on eBird's homepage.
Bird Videos of the Week
By Fox 2 News, “Gateway Arch lights go dark in September for annual bird migration”.
The Dodo - Eagle Rescue.
Cornell Live Bird Cam - Gray Catbird.