Happy Holidays to all.
We have a light line-up this morning, sandwiched in between Christmas and New Years.
Hope you enjoy it and thank you again for your interest in - and support of - Birds News Items!
1. With the stroke of a pen on Christmas Eve, President Biden officially made the Bald Eagle our national bird - but we have one man in particular to thank: Since the 1960s, Preston Cook has lived among bald eagles — amassing a sprawling collection of historical documents, books, artwork, posters, photos and trinkets splashed with a species long thought to be the country’s official bird. But as he worked on a book chronicling his treasures, one question stopped him cold: Where’s the proof? “It turns out that the documentation wasn’t missing — it didn’t exist. We’ve never had a national bird,” Cook told The Washington Post. “The senator sent me back a letter saying it’s assumed to be our national bird, but it has never been declared our national bird.” (via The Washington Post)
By Hap Ellis, Bald Eagle - Kennebunkport, ME.
2. Torrent Ducks - found in Swift flowing Andean rivers and streams - are aptly named - as you can see from this charming short video: [Click to see a family of Torrent Ducks in rapids] (via Cornell Lab, Macaulay Library)
3. Revisiting a great piece from 2024 on one of BNI's favorite birds: silent owls, stealthy voles, and "acoustic mirages": Perhaps no species of owl is as superbly adapted for hunting in snow as the Great Gray. Found throughout the boreal forests of the Northern Hemisphere, Great Gray Owls dine primarily on small mouselike rodents called voles. In winter, voles retreat to tunnels deep under the snow—but that doesn’t stop Great Grays. Hunting from an exposed perch, an owl listens intently for its target, then swoops down from above, punching through the crust of snow with its long, powerful legs. Able to reach prey almost 18 inches below the surface of the snow, Great Gray Owls have been known to penetrate snow crusts thick enough to support a 175-pound person. What hasn’t been clear, despite decades of research about Great Gray Owls, is how they do it—how do Great Grays hunt prey animals no longer than a ballpoint pen, which they can’t see, using only faint burrowing sounds more than a foot under the snow to guide them in plunging strikes with surgical precision? (via All About Birds)
By Hap Ellis, Great Gray Owl - Sax-Zim Bog, northern Minnesota.
4. For those that enjoy back yard bird feeding, how about the number of species that come to this feeder: The Canopy Lodge hosts an incredibly diverse list of tropical bird species at their fruit-stocked feeders in El Valle de Antón, Panama. Now’s your chance to review all 85 species that have visited over the years since the Panama Fruit Feeder Cam began streaming in 2018. Species include a more than a dozen tropical tanagers, nectar-seeking hummingbirds, colorful toucans, and many migrant birds that might be familiar to northern audiences! (via All About Birds)
5. Check out this Christmas visitor to a home in Arlington, VA (from Instagram):
6. And then, check out this adorable little boy on his first birding outing with his new Christmas present:
7. And finally, let's close out the year as we've done before with Wendy Paulson's wonderful "Birds and Hope":
Thanks for this great Substack!
Saw the Torrent Ducks in Ecuador in Feb. 2020, pretty cool.