1. A feel-good story to start: A lonely loon landed last month on a small suburban Virginia pond in a residential neighborhood, then it got stranded. For weeks, a group of strangers came together online and in person to develop a rescue plan. They wanted to move it to a bigger lake in Fairfax County, where they hoped it would take off and fly to breeding grounds in the Great Lakes area or New England. The next chapter in the bird’s journey through Northern Virginia began this week, when rescuers sneaked up on the bird, scooped it into a net and shuttled it to friendlier terrain. (via The Washington Post)
2. Author Jonathan Meiburg was exploring the Falkland Islands in 1997, when a large group of dark birds came running across the ground toward him. "I had never heard of these birds. I'd never seen them. I didn't know anything about them,” said Meiburg. The creatures were caracaras, birds of prey with several subspecies spread across Central and South America. Some have also turned up in Canada in recent years. Though the birds are part of the falcon family, they've often been described as behaving more like scavengers, such as crows. Caracaras display a unique intelligence that has been "unsung for far too long," he said. (via CBC)
3. Interesting study: For birds and other wildlife, winter is a time of resource scarcity. Extreme winter weather events such as a polar vortex can push some species to the edge of survival. Yet winter tends to get short shrift in climate change research. Ecology Professor Ben Zuckerberg, along with Jeremy Cohen, a former UW–Madison postdoctoral researcher now at the Yale Center for Biodiversity and Global Change, and Daniel Fink of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, set out to learn how extreme winter cold and heat affected 41 common bird species in eastern North America. Their work, found that individual bird species respond differently to these weather events, and extreme winter heat may lead to longer-term changes in bird populations. (via University of Wisconsin-Madison)
4. Another cut at why “Lights Out” campaign in major cities is so important: Calista McRae is one of about 30 New York City Audubon volunteers who search for injured and dead birds in the city’s commercial centers. They are part of the group’s Project Safe Flight, tallying injuries and fatalities and documenting particularly dangerous spots. A few minutes earlier she had come across a black-and-white warbler on the ground, stunned but alive, and that’s the source of the noise in her tote. She’d gently put it into its own tiny brown-paper bag — smaller than a lunch baggie — and then closed it with a miniature black binder clip. “The bags are breathable,” she explained. The little paper bags are then put into a larger paper bag and stowed in the FreshDirect tote to minimize shock and stress. Rustling means a bird is weirded out by the bag, but weirded out means alive. (via Curbed)
5. This is such a cool bird: New Zealand’s rare, highly endangered alpine parrots may have headed for the mountains to avoid people – and researchers say their adaptability could help them survive the climate crisis. The kea is considered the only alpine parrot in the world. But scientists analysing DNA sequencing and fossil records have found kea were once present in other parts of the country. The news is something of a knock to the kea’s internationally unique “alpine parrot” status. But it may also be a saving grace for the endangered bird, making it more capable of surviving habitat loss or increased competition. (read more about this bird in The Bird Way by Jennifer Ackerman) (via The Guardian)
6. And speaking of parrots: A large flock of critically endangered swift parrots has been spotted in northern New South Wales, sparking a ripple of excitement, and hope, among birdwatchers. Swift parrots breed in Tasmania in the summer before migrating to the mainland in the colder months. There's only around 750 estimated to be left in the wild. A flock of almost 60 was recently spotted at Port Macquarie on the NSW mid-north coast. They were first seen by local school principal and passionate birdwatcher Catherine Oehlman who spotted them on her school grounds. (via ABC News)
7. In 2008, Philip Stouffer found himself befuddled in the middle of the Amazon rainforest. It had been nearly 20 years since his first visit to the Biological Dynamics of Forest Fragments Project (BDFFP), a long-term study of rainforest fragmentation based at a protected 37,000-acre portion of the Brazilian forest about 50 miles north of the city of Manaus. His surroundings were as lush as as they had always been, and old, tall trees testified to the ecosystem’s good health. Like in previous visits, he expected to spot some of the Amazon’s most elusive birds. But that wasn’t the case. “Rare birds were harder to find than we anticipated,” Stouffer, a Louisiana State University biologist, says. He spent the next eight years trying to confirm his observation that the area's birdlife had changed and to explain why it was happening. (via Audubon)
8. The North American mockingbird is famous for its ability to imitate the song of other birds. But it doesn't just mimic its kindred species, it actually composes its own songs based on other birds' melodies. An interdisciplinary research team has now worked out how exactly the mockingbird constructs its imitations. The scientists determined that the birds follow similar musical rules as those found in human music, from Beethoven to Kendrick Lamar. The song of the mockingbird is so complex that to investigate it required a joint effort of experts from very different fields. (via Science Daily)
9. A constant challenge: South Africa's Verreaux's eagles have a problem. The very landscapes they favour, where the air currents along vast ridges carry them as they soar, are prime locations for wind farm developers - who want to make use of exactly the same resource. "At least 24 carcasses have been picked up under wind turbines," says Dr Megan Murgatroyd, from Hawkwatch International. Sometimes the birds die when they collide with the swiftly spinning blades of the turbines, which are difficult for them to see. Or, they get electrocuted by power lines at the wind farms. Dr Murgatroyd is on a mission to stop this happening and she's decided to work with wind energy companies in order to find ways of reducing fatalities. (via BBC)
10. Magic tricks!: You can impress family members and friends with magic tricks, but you can also use them to study the differences in perception between animals and humans – and a new study highlights how Eurasian jays aren't quite as susceptible to sleight of hand as we are. Jays and other large-brained birds often use techniques similar to sleight of hand to keep food concealed in their beaks and away from potential scavengers, which adds another level of intrigue when it comes to how they react to magic performed by a person. "A magic trick works because it violates your expectations," psychologist Elias Garcia-Pelegrin, from the University of Cambridge in the UK, told The Academic Times. (via Science Alert)
11. Fun piece from NPR: You don't need to go to a nature preserve or a secluded park to bird. The idea that there are outdoor spaces that are a part of "nature" vs. "urban spaces" can be a big barrier to people who want to bird, says Yamina Nater-Otero, program coordinator at Audubon New York and committee member for the Black and Latino Birders Fund. "If you live in an urban space [and] you don't have a car, you're going to think to yourself, 'where am I supposed to go?'" they say. Nater-Otero likes to "patch bird," which involves locating a small space nearby where you can bird regularly. Going to the same spot on a regular basis allows you to become familiar with the birds that reside there year-round, which in turn can help you identify visiting migrants in the spring and the fall. (via NPR)
12. Impressive gift to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology: The Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s groundbreaking Center for Conservation Bioacoustics will begin a new era of innovation thanks to a major gift from the philanthropist and Lab Advisory Board member K. Lisa Yang ’74. The $24 million gift, announced June 4 at the Cornell Lab’s spring board meeting, is the largest one time gift in the lab’s history. The naming was approved May 28 by the Cornell University Board of Trustees. In addition to naming the K. Lisa Yang Center for Conservation Bioacoustics, the gift endows the John W. Fitzpatrick Directorship for the center, named in honor of the Cornell Lab’s longtime leader to recognize his vision in the need to invest in technology at the Lab. (via The Cornell Chronicle)
Bird Photo of the Week
Photo by Hap Ellis, Eastern Towhee.
Bird Videos of the Week
By Science Magazine, “Why bird brains are more brilliant than anyone suspected”.
Cornell Live Bird Cam - Kestrel Feeding.
Cornell Live Bird Cam - Hawk nestlings.