1. The Smithsonian has a fun piece on Flaco, New York’s celebrity escapee: A Eurasian eagle-owl named Flaco has been on the loose for a week in New York City after a vandal cut through his mesh enclosure at the Central Park Zoo. Despite efforts to trap him and almost around-the-clock monitoring by zoo staff, the owl has so far evaded capture. “We are stressed and frustrated and tired,” one employee, who requested anonymity because zoo workers were ordered not to speak to the press, tells Gothamist’s Jake Offenhartz. “People have been up all day and night.” Zoo staff first noticed Flaco was missing from his exhibit at 8:30 p.m. on February 2, per a statement. That night, he was spotted near Bergdorf Goodman on Fifth Avenue before he headed back to Central Park. The bird has mostly stuck close to the zoo, perching in trees in the park and even visiting the zoo’s crane exhibit. (via Smithsonian)
2. Water, migratory birds and drought – the “Ripple Effect”: As water managers know all too well, one of the fundamental challenges is that water is one element of a complex and connected system. Water that falls as snow in the mountains moves downslope to rivers, wetlands, lakes, underground aquifers, and coastal estuaries. These hydrological connections provide foundational resources for an incredible system that supports people, fish, birds, and other biodiversity across the planet. But today’s hydrologic cycle is vastly different than 50 years ago, with evidence of climate disruption throughout the water cycle—including long-term drought, heat waves, flooding, wildfire, and more. One challenge of understanding and managing these water-based systems is that many impacts, such as long-term drought, do not affect just one location. (via Audubon)
3. Then there is this grim assessment of avian flu from Katherine Wu’s article in The Atlantic: In the meantime, the outbreak has already been larger, faster-moving, and more devastating to North America’s wildlife than any other in recorded history, and has not yet shown signs of stopping. “I would use just one word to describe it: unprecedented,” says Shayan Sharif, an avian immunologist at Ontario Veterinary College. “We have never seen anything like this before.” This strain of bird flu is unlikely to be our next pandemic. But a flu pandemic has already begun for countless other creatures—and it could alter North America’s biodiversity for good. Full article is here (via The Atlantic)
4. Backyard birdwatchers of the world, unite! (this weekend at least): It’s a given that when the Great Backyard Bird Count begins Friday, Steve and Janet Kistler of Hart County, Kentucky, will be joining in. They’ve done so every year since the now-global tradition began 25 years ago. For Moira Dalibor, a middle-school math teacher a couple hours away in Lexington, this will be the first count. She’s leading a group of students and parents to an arboretum for an exercise in data-gathering. They’re expected to be among hundreds of thousands of people around the world counting and recording over four days. Last year, about 385,000 people from 192 countries took part in the Great Backyard Bird Count, or GBBC. (via Associated Press)
5. If you guessed “Biliverdin”, you guessed right: What makes robin eggs blue? Robin eggs color is blue precisely because of a pigment called biliverdin. This pigment is produced by the female when laying the eggs. Biliverdin is the same pigment found in blue butterfly wings, the bluish blood of many fish, and our bruises that turn green. The pigment is also found in the placenta of dogs. This is the reason why, at times, puppies are born with a temporary blue-greenish tinge on their fur! Not all robin eggs come out the same shade. Typically, the earlier eggs of the batch come out a more intense blue than the last few eggs. Smaller eggs also come out brighter than larger eggs. But why do robins color their eggs blue? (via Thayer Birding)
6. The latest on “Lights out” initiatives – this one from Philadelphia: Lights Out Philly, an effort to reduce the number of birds that die crashing into buildings in Philadelphia, appears to be working. The past two spring and fall migration seasons, Philly-area organizations have convinced building owners and managers to turn out the lights at night, so that birds don’t get disoriented and fly into the glass. Organizers have started collecting data, and say it looks promising. They announced early results at a preview of a new bird-themed exhibit at Drexel’s Academy of Natural Sciences, called “Conversations With Birds,” which opens Saturday and runs through late May. (via WHYY PBS)
7. Not sure about this idea: A reliable approach to creating a machine that can walk, run, swim, or fly like an animal is to simply copy Mother Nature’s work. There’s a good reason Boston Dynamics’ SPOT looks like a dog. But to create drones that fly, move, and even look like birds, researchers from the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology are building them from actual dead birds. Those of us who have been online for the past decade may remember the work of Dutch artist, Bart Jansen, who back in 2012, turned their deceased, taxidermied cat into a furry quadcopter. It was as disturbing a creation as it sounds, but that was more or less the point of its existence. As with most art pieces, it sparked a conversation. (via Gizmodo)
8. A hard subject to study: Some birds sleep in the air. Swifts, for example, hunt down bugs high in the sky 24 hours a day from the time they leave their nest until they return six months later. Some landbirds make transoceanic migrations lasting weeks, in which touching down would mean instant death. Seabirds often spend months in the air searching for food. They are capable of swimming but avoid it because of the risks from below. When do these birds sleep? Avian sleep has been pondered often, but rigorous study is a challenge. What we do know is that all vertebrate animals sleep and have REM cycles that are vital for maintaining the brain. Because the same electrical firing in the brain that occurs during bird song is seen during bird sleep, we suspect that they dream of singing. (via The Virginia Gazette)
9. Not all BNI readers wonder about the parasites of Passerines, but for those that do, this serious look from England: Passerine birds belong to the bird order Passariformes, and make up over half of bird species. There have been surprisingly few studies on the endoparasites of wild birds of Britain and Ireland, and studies in other countries have mainly focused on domestic or captive birds. So far, the only study conducted in Britain to include wild passerines focused on coccidia parasites. Such studies that help us understand the epidemiology of parasites in wild populations are vital for wildlife conservation, and in understanding the parasites themselves, their biodiversity, life cycles, transmission patterns and the evolution of both parasite and host. (via BioMedical Central)
10. Controversy brewing in UK: Should endangered wild be hunted for sport? It sounds like an odd question to be asking in 2023. Yet, at a time when many avian species in the UK are under threat of regional, government data reveals falconers are permitted to hunt rare songbirds. The data, released this week by government watchdog Natural England, has caused concern among environmentalists. Falconry involves hunting wild animals in their natural habitat using a trained bird of prey. There are reportedly around 25,000 falconers in the UK. The sport itself dates back hundreds of years, and it has seen a resurgence in recent times. (via EuroNews)
11. A bit of good news for a big bird: The ungainly yet graceful wood stork, which was on the brink of extinction in 1984, has recovered sufficiently in Florida and other Southern states that U.S. wildlife officials on Tuesday proposed removing the wading bird from the endangered species list. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said in a news release that restoration of the wood stork's habitat, especially in the Florida Everglades and adjacent Big Cypress National Preserve, led to a sharp increase in breeding pairs. Those numbers had shrunk to just 5,000 pairs in 1984, whereas there are more than 10,000 pairs today. (via National Public Radio)
12. This reads a bit like a police blotter for birds, but it’s The Washington Post, afterall, and the culprit may be behavior this “time of year”: The bald eagle couldn’t close its right eye, and the barred owl’s beak was broken, its skin peeling back from its face. Neither could fly when they were brought earlier this month to a wildlife rescuer in Virginia, and efforts are underway to save them. Jennifer Riley, a veterinarian at Blue Ridge Wildlife Center in Boyce, Va., said the barred owl was brought to her facility on Feb. 2. A homeless man in Aldie had found the injured owl in the road near a brewery and asked an employee to help. Blue Ridge determined the eagle had suffered head trauma. Experts at Blue Ridge said in a Facebook post that it’s common at this time of year for birds of prey to “engage in territorial displays and attacks, as mating and nesting season is in full swing.” (via The Washington Post)
13. And finally we conclude with a nice article on carving - with a special Bird News Item friend in mind who just happens to be an expert carver: Steve Quiram’s carving of a belted kingfisher, one of my favorite birds, with a minnow in its beak stopped me Sunday at the Henry Decoy Show at Three Sisters Park in Chillicothe. I am drawn to artisans, craftsmen and artists in the outdoors world. Quiram recalled being introduced to Richard Lemaster’s “The Art of the Wooden Bird,” on the making of decoys, by his wife’s uncle about 35 years ago. Quiram came a long way, since. “I started making smooth decoys and moved up from there to making fancier ones with feathers on them,” said Quiram, a retired painter (30 years at Illinois State)/house painter from Hudson. One of the moves up proved fortuitous. “I started making songbirds,” he said. “Because if I’m getting a customer who buys a $700 duck and his wife wants a $200 songbird, he ain’t gonna say, `No.’ “ When I asked what was his favorite, he gave a glimpse of the soul of an artist. (via Chicago Sun Times)
Bird Photo of the Week
Photo by Hap Ellis, Florida Scrub Jay, Coker Prairie Tract, Myakka City, FL.
Bird Videos of the Week
By BBC Earth, “Playtime for Young Kea Birds”.
Cornell Live Bird Cam - Royal Albatross.
Cornell Live Bird Cam - Albatross Chick Weigh-in