1. Let's begin with a beautiful, slow-motion look at the Osprey's dive: Osprey are majestic raptors that are common in coasts, lakes, and rivers around the world. They are the only hawk or eagle species that can submerge completely to catch fish, then take to the air again thanks to their specialized wings. In this episode of Wild Birds Revealed, nature photographers Tim and Russell Laman challenge themselves to capture an Osprey’s signature talon-first hunting dive in super slow motion and in still photos, to understand how they manage this feat. (via All About Birds)
2. BirdCast - again! - making news, this time in the Washington Post: Hundreds of millions of birds are taking to the skies each night, southward-bound in search of warmer weather — so many that you can spot them on weather radar. It’s data that researchers can use to estimate how many birds are in the skies and where they’re going. TheCornell Lab of Ornithology processes such data, which is taken from the National Weather Service’s network of 159 specific weather surveillance doppler radars scattered about the country. Weather-related signals are filtered out and the data is analyzed, leaving scientists with a nightly bird count of sorts. (via The Washington Post)
By Hap Ellis, Fall Migration - Least Sandpiper - Timber Point Trail, Kennebunkport, ME.
3. Secret to staying young - from these Flamingos to your fingertips: Some animals don’t age at the same pace, and flamingos may hold the key to why. A decades-long study in France reveals that resident flamingos, which stay put, enjoy early-life advantages but pay later with accelerated aging, while migratory flamingos endure early hardships yet age more slowly. This surprising link between movement and longevity challenges old assumptions and offers new insights into the science of aging. (via Science Daily)
4. "Seeing the forest from the birds": Miranda Zammarelli hikes into theHubbard Brook Experimental Forest in central New Hampshire, pausing when she sees a tree with a pink ribbon wrapped around its trunk. Zammarelli, a behavioral ecologist and PhD candidate at Dartmouth College, knows that ribbon well. It marks the corner of a 25-acre field site first established in 1969 to map the territories of the songbirds inhabiting it. Her task now is simply to wander, wait and listen. On this early morning in June, it doesn't take long before a soft melody wafts down from the treetops. "That's a black-throated blue warbler," murmurs Zammarelli with a kind of reverence. (via National Public Radio)
5. Lights Out NYC - managing two very important, symbolic beams of light on 9/11: The solemn ceremony this morning will be followed by another ritual tonight: Two beams of light will be switched on in Lower Manhattan. Like the reading of names at the World Trade Center site in the morning, the lights in the evening will be a reminder of what was lost in the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001. “Everyone who sees the two beams of light about the 9/11 Memorial joins our shared commitment to never forget,” said Beth Hillman, the president and chief executive of the 9/11 Memorial & Museum. Dustin Partridge’s role tonight will be to see that birds are not lost in the lights. He is the director of conservation and science for the NYC Bird Alliance, whichchanged its name from NYC Audubon last year, and will ask the production team running the lights to turn them off briefly if too many birds are drawn to the installation. (via The New York Times)
6. From Rome, a "Hitchcockian nightmare": Rome’s mayor has ordered a woman to stop feeding dozens of pigeons that have overrun an apartment block, after furious residents, claiming to be drowning in feathers and guano, demanded relief from what has been described as a Hitchcockian nightmare. For several months, on the third floor of a building at 108 Via Spartaco, a woman nicknamed “The Pigeon Lady” by the press has been feeding the flock of birds that has been plaguing the block. After countless complaints from residents, exasperated by the thick layer of guano covering the building’s interior and the public areas below – not to mention the parked cars – local authorities issued an order banning her from feeding the pigeons. (via The Guardian)
By Hap Ellis, Great Egret - Goose Rocks Beach, Kennebunkport, ME.
7. What it takes: On Maui’s iconic volcanic slopes almost 25 years ago, Ashley Dayer searched for one of the world’s rarest birds. The po‘ouli, a small Hawaiian black-faced honeycreeper, had only three known individuals of the species left at the time. Helicopters dropped Dayer and her team into the Hawaiian rainforest for weeks at a time, tasked with capturing a bird and relocating it in hopes it would pair with another. Ultimately, the effort failed, and within years the po‘ouli was extinct. Dayer still remembers the hollow feeling of seeing its image years later at a conference. Working to save the world’s rarest bird I realized conservation couldn’t succeed without people,” said Dayer, associate professor in theDepartment of Fish and Wildlife Conservation. (via Virginia Tech)
8. Always good to be reminded of the species that do recover: When I started bird-watching as a teenager, a few years after the first Earth Day in 1970, several species that once thrived in my region were nowhere to be found. Some, like thepassenger pigeon, were extinct. Others had retreated to more remote, wild areas of North America. In many cases, humans haddestroyed their habitat by cutting down forests, draining wetlands and converting grasslands to agriculture. Pesticides such as DDT, air and water pollution, and the shooting of birds added to the drop in numbers. Birds are still declining across the continent. A recent study of 529 species found their numbers fell nearly 30% from 1970 to 2017. In 2025, nearly one-third of all North American bird species are declining 112 bird species have lost more than half their population in the past 50 years. (via The Conversation)
9. A new study on Arctic-breeding waterfowl and migration: As climate change drives earlier spring conditions in the Arctic, bird species that travel there to breed there are under pressure to migrate faster. A new study led by researchers from the University of Amsterdam and the Netherlands Institute of Ecology reveals that many Arctic-breeding waterfowl still have some flexibility when it comes to speeding up their migrations. However, this strategy may only work for a limited time. Thestudy, published in Nature Climate Change, GPS-tracked more than 500 spring migrations of five large waterfowl species: brent geese,barnacle geese, greater white-fronted geese, pink-footed geese and Bewick's swans. Combining the tracking data with long-term body mass data collected from birds in their wintering grounds, the researchers discovered that these birds can reduce the time spent fueling for their journey, allowing them to arrive earlier in the Arctic. (via Phys Org)
By Hap Ellis, Fall Migration - Semipalmated Plover - Timber Point Trail, Kennebunkport, ME.
10. A paean to the birds of the forest understory: Beneath the highest tree canopy lies the forest understory—a woodland habitat ofground cover plants, vines, shrubs and small trees. With limited sunlight and plenty of predators, you might think birds would avoid it. On the contrary, many birds wouldn’t call any other place home. “It’s a misconception that all these forest birds nest at the tops of the trees,” says Sarah Sargent, an avian ecologist and director of conservation at the Erie Bird Observatory in northwestern Pennsylvania. “That’s really the exception because conditions—wind, rain and temperature—there are more extreme. Things are a little more sheltered and protected lower down.” (via Birds and Blooms)
11. A good piece in Texas Monthly on the effects of looming budget cuts for bird-banding: The hummingbird Susan Heath is banding weighs 3.06 grams—an amount, I will learn, when she places a bird on my open palm, is too light for a human hand to even feel. Ten minutes earlier, the bird flew into a nearby trap, a feeder cloaked in a net with a single opening, at the Nature Conservancy’s Davis Mountains Preserve, in West Texas. Now Heath is collecting its measurements and giving it the leg band it will wear for the rest of its life, in the name of science. This overcast August morning marks the second day of the biennial Davis Mountains Hummingbird Celebration. As a dozen onlookers surround her table, Heath talks through the identification process. (via Texas Monthly)
12. A chat with the editors of BWD Magazine (Bird Watcher's Digest) and the book "Bird Watching for Dummies": I love to watch for signs of both—and can’t imagine a day that doesn’t involve watching birds at least a little. That’s why I was happy to learn about a fun new book about bird-watching basics by the editors of “BWD Magazine” that ventures into related topics, too….like how to make your garden attractive to more birds. I set out decades ago to make a garden for the birds, and it’s hard to remember a day since that hasn’t involved some degree of engagement with both parts of the picture—plants and birds. Including lots and lots and lots of bird watching. Today’s guests areJessica Vaughan andJulie Zickefoose—both of whom are editors at “BWD Magazine” (formerly “Bird Watchers Digest”), and are now, along with their colleague Dawn Hewitt, also the authors of a new edition of the book“Bird Watching for Dummies” (via A Way to Garden)
By Hap Ellis, Belted Kingfisher - Goose Rocks Beach, Kennebunkport, ME.
13. Interesting pics: Our human impulse to categorize and collect is a central theme of a robust body of work byClaire Rosen. For more than a decade, Rosen has sought out chattering macaws, cockatoos with fluffy, blush-colored plumage, and ornery owls, which she pairs with patterned papers and textiles. An African penguin, for example, stares curiously at its pink-and-white striped surroundings, while a Lady Amherst’s pheasant trots across ornate brocade. The resulting portraits are meditations on notions of beauty and the relationship between nature and culture, particularly as we’ve reproduced imagery of the former throughout centuries of art and design. (via This Is Colossal)
14. News from Hawaii - every little bit helps: In a significant move to preserve Hawaiʻi Island's fragile ecosystems and honor Native Hawaiian cultural values, the Hawaiʻi County Council passed Bill 51, the legislation prohibiting the feeding of feral and stray animals such as cats, pigs, goats, and chickens on all County-owned or managed properties. Bill 51 focuses on public spaces, including County parks, beaches, and facilities where populations ofintroduced species often congregate due to people feeding them and other inviting conditions. The bill assigned as Ordinance No. 25-63 will take effect on January 1, 2026. (via American Bird Conversancy)
15. "57 Days a Mom" - Let's finish with this wonderful, endearing 3 minute video of a female Blue Tit from nest building to fledging - check it out:
Bird Videos of the Week
Video by Weather Nation, “Migration Nation: Billions Migrating This Fall”.
Cornell Live Bird Cam - Wild Birds Revealed.
Cornell Live Bird Cam - Blue-gray Tanager.
Go Birding!
The least sandpiper is definitely not least in presence or beauty!