1. Did you know that when some migratory birds prepare for flights that can take them thousands of miles, their intestines and digestive organs shrink while their heart, lung and leg muscles can double in size? That's just one of the amazing facts you can learn from NPR’s interviewee, Scott Weidensaul. He's spent decades studying migratory birds, reporting on and writing about them and doing fieldwork and tracking and conservation efforts. The scale of bird migration is staggering, involving billions of birds, and the diversity of the species' mating, nesting and flying habits is awe inspiring. Weidensaul's latest book, "A World On The Wing: The Global Odyssey Of Migratory Birds," is now out in paperback. Weidensaul writes about what he calls this majestic global pageant and about the threats the animals face. (via NPR)
You can purchase his book here.
2. Humans have long marveled at such exotic stragglers — which experts also refer to as waifs, rarities, extralimitals, casuals and accidentals — and what they suggest about the biological importance of wandering. “The ‘accidentals’ are the exceptional individuals that go farthest away from the metropolis of the species; they do not belong to the ordinary mob,” Joseph Grinnell, a field biologist in California, noted in 1922. “They constitute a sort of sensitive tentacles, by which the species keeps aware of the possibilities of aerial expansion.” The peripatetic sea eagle wasn’t 2021’s only extralimital. An Inca tern spotted in Hawaii; a small-billed elaenia captured in a net in Quebec; a heron-like limpkin recorded in Texas for the first time; and, a gray-breasted Martin observed in Prospect Park in Brooklyn. (via The New York Times)
3. We’re going to need a bigger nest! There’ll be 33% more excitement in the hawk’s nest along Cornell’s Tower Road this spring. For the first time since the Lab of Ornithology installed a live camera on the nest in 2012, Big Red, the female red-tailed hawk, has produced a fourth egg. It’s a big deal because in the 10 previous breeding seasons captured by the live camera, Big Red has laid three eggs each season. “The fourth egg really caught us all by surprise,” said Charles Eldermire, leader of the Bird Cams project. “It’s exciting to think that there’s so much more to learn from our longest-running live camera.” Surprise and delight are also reflected in the flood of comments from cam-watchers. Many take note of what at a busy spring it will be for Big Red and her mate, Arthur, named for Arthur A. Allen, Cornell professor and Lab of Ornithology founder. (via Cornell Chronicle)
4. Weaver birds that eat seeds flock together and nest in colonies more commonly than those species that eat insects, suggests new research by an international team of scientists led by the Milner Centre for Evolution at the University of Bath. For the first time, the study statistically supports an influential ecological hypothesis on social behaviour first proposed 58 years ago. The research, for the first time, statistically supports the ecological hypotheses of social evolution developed by a British ethologist, John Crook, who first proposed the link between diet, habitat and social behaviour in 1964. Crook's study became a textbook example of ecological effects on mating systems, and it has influenced generations of behavioural ecologists. (via Science Daily)
5. Crows can recognise themselves in mirrors, use tools and plan for the future, all cognitive abilities more similar to those seen in non-human primates than to those of most other birds. This intelligence may be related to them having an unusually high number of brain cells involved in processing information. Felix Ströckens at the Ruhr University Bochum in Germany and his colleagues analysed the brains of common ostriches (Struthio camelus), brown warren chickens (Gallus gallus domesticus), racing homer pigeons (Columba livia domestica) and three members the crow family. (via New Scientist)
6. Songbirds that dwell in tropical regions closer to the equator are more colourful than those living in milder climates. The findings support the idea that tropical animals are generally more colourful than those that live at high or low latitudes. The idea that life in the tropics is more colourful was first introduced by 19th-century naturalists such as Charles Darwin and Alexander von Humboldt. Until recently, however, it has been hard to prove this hypothesis due to difficulty in quantifying colouration. Now, equipped with more advanced image analysis techniques, Chris Cooney at the University of Sheffield, UK, and his colleagues decided to test the hypothesis on songbirds – birds in the group Passeriformes – which comprise around 60 per cent of all bird species. (via New Scientist)
7. Zoos across North America are moving their birds indoors and away from people and wildlife as they try to protect them from the highly contagious and potentially deadly avian influenza. Penguins may be the only birds visitors to many zoos can see right now, because they already are kept inside and usually protected behind glass in their exhibits, making it harder for the bird flu to reach them. Nearly 23 million chickens and turkeys have already been killed across the United States to limit the spread of the virus, and zoos are working hard to prevent any of their birds from meeting the same fate. It would be especially upsetting for zoos to have to kill any of the endangered or threatened species in their care. (via National Public Radio)
8. BirdBots (really): Alexander Bardi-Spröwitz has seen more dissected ostriches than the average engineer. Twelve years ago the researcher, now at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Stuttgart, Germany, was attempting to design a legged robot based on bird biology. The trouble was that most biologists do not describe animal anatomy in engineering-friendly terms. “It’s not their goal to build a robot,” Bardi-Spröwitz notes. “It’s a bit frustrating for me as an engineer because I need certain types of information.” Then he met Monica Daley, a veterinary scientist then at the Royal Veterinary College in England, who offered him a postdoctoral position alongside her veterinary students. “That got me thinking about how we use our understanding of locomotion and animals to develop more agile robots,” Daley says. Now this combination of veterinary experience and hard robotics has paid off. The two researchers, along with members of Bardi-Spröwitz’s lab, have created BirdBot—a bipedal machine that may one day explore terrains such as dense forests, where wheeled or treaded robots cannot move. (via Scientific American)
9. Secret to Better Coffee: A groundbreaking study reveals that without birds and bees working together, some traveling thousands of miles, coffee farmers would see a whopping 25% drop in crop yields. Coffee is bigger and more plentiful when birds and bees team up to protect and pollinate coffee plants. The study is also the first to show, with real-world experiments, that the contributions of nature -- ie. from bees and birds -- are larger combined than their individual contributions. This suggests researchers may be underestimating how much the environment benefits society. (via Science Daily)
10. Concerning: A highly toxic rat poison is killing increasing numbers of birds of prey, figures show, as wildlife campaigners call for its use to be banned outdoors. Most recently, a white-tailed eagle was found poisoned by the anticoagulant brodifacoum on an estate in Dorset. Police closed the investigation into the eagle death last week with no charges issued. But this rare bird was not alone. New data from the Wildlife Incident Investigation Scheme shows that from 2005 to 2019, the number of dead birds of prey found where the main poison in their body was brodifacoum was in single figures each year. This changed in 2020, when 23 were found, rising from four in 2019. Twenty-five were found in the first half of 2021. (via The Guardian)
11. Bird feeding -Do No Harm: Attracting winged wildlife close to your home isn’t as simple as buying a birdhouse or bird feeder. Installing or maintaining them incorrectly can pose risks to the birds—and your family. Homeowners who have populated their yards with feeders, houses and baths to attract avian visitors must care for the devices properly, ornithologists say. The issue is especially pronounced with sales of feeders up at least 35% from spring 2020 to spring 2021, according to Panacea Products, which sells feeders. With feeders linked to a deadly avian salmonella outbreak last spring, it is time to make sure your birdhouses, birdbaths and windows are bird-friendly.(via The Wall Street Journal)
12. Simple solutions: From communication towers and tall buildings to residential windows and glass doors, birds face a multitude of dangers as they navigate our built environment. Research indicates that up to one billion birds may be killed per year in the United States alone as a result of collisions, happening in both commercial and residential settings, at all hours of the day. Surprisingly, the majority of these deadly collisions are occurring in low-rise buildings, rather than skyscrapers. The biggest hazards contributing to these collisions - artificial light at night and glass. Some simple actions can help make our communities and the skies safer for birds. (via Audubon)
Bird Photo of the Week
Photo by Rick Bunting – Great Blue Herons, Bainbridge, NY.
Bird Videos of the Week
By Cornell Chronicle, “Cross-college collaboration explores the mystery of the mummified bird”.
Cornell Live Bird Cam - Owl Nest.
Cornell Live Bird Cam - Outside Post View.