Editors Note: Several pieces today focus on Fall migration. Christopher Ellis captured a few magic migration moments this fall in the very heart of New York City earlier this month.
1. Let's start with a look at 10 billion birds on the move - aka, Fall migration: Billions of birds are flying south for the annual fall migration, including 4.7 billion leaving the U.S. alone, bound for Mexico, Central and South America. Sadly, over the past 50 years, North American bird populations dropped by nearly 3 billion, due to habitat loss, climate change, and massive development along their flight paths. An estimated one billion deaths per year are due to building collisions, with light pollution being an amplifying factor. We (scientists, conservationists, media and the public) know this because of volunteers, citizen scientists like you, who shared their local observations using free apps and online data forms! Here's YOUR chance to get involved. (via Discover Magazine)
2. Sadly, some of those 10 billion birds don't make it - a powerful picture depicting the carnage of window/building collisions: An impactful photo showing 4,000 birds that died from colliding with buildings has won Bird Photographer of the Year 2024. The remarkable image taken by Patricia Homonylo from Canada shows thousands of birds that were killed by flying into windows and other reflective surfaces in urban areas. “Each year more than one billion birds die in North America alone due to collisions with windows,” says Homonylo, per a press release. “I am a conservation photojournalist and have been working with the Fatal Light Awareness Program (FLAT), where we save window-collision survivors in Toronto. Sadly, most of the birds we find are already dead. They are collected and at the end of the year, we create this impactful display to honour the lives lost and increase public awareness. (via Petapixel)
Photo by Christopher Ellis, Bryant Park, 5th Avenue — Where the birds were.
3. Trapped inside the eye - check this out: Birds are incredible navigators, capable of traveling thousands of miles each year to the same location. But sometimes even they end up in the wrong place at the wrong time — like inside a hurricane. Last night, as Hurricane Helene was making landfall in Florida as a powerful Category 4 storm, radar spotted a mass in the eye of the storm that experts say is likely birds and perhaps also insects. Helene was a massive storm when it traveled across the Gulf of Mexico earlier this week. Seabirds likely fled the storm’s extreme winds — which reached 140 miles per hour — and ended up in the eye, where it’s calm. Once inside, they essentially got trapped, unable to pierce through the fierce gusts of the eye wall. When the storm dies down, the mass of birds will probably dissipate. (via Vox)
4. Is social media putting our rarest wildlife at risk?: With its impressive size, striking plumage and rowdy displays, sighting a capercaillie is many birders’ dream. Only about 530 of the large woodland grouse survive in the wild in Scotland, most in the Cairngorms national park. But in recent years, those tasked with saving the species from extinction have had to walk a line between calling attention to the birds’ plight and discouraging people from seeking them out. Although it is illegal to disturb capercaillie during the breeding season from March to August, that hasn’t deterred birders and nature photographers, motivated by the possibility of a prestigious spot – or shot. Over the 2022 season, 17 people were found on or around the “lek”, where male birds gather to compete for the attention of females in spring, says Carolyn Robertson, the project manager of the Cairngorms Capercaillie Project. (via The Guardian)
5. Migration, timing & climate: When Logan Parker first sees a male, black-throated blue warbler near his Maine home each spring, two things strike him about the tiny bird – its stunning appearance and the thousands of miles it traveled from its winter home in Central America or the Caribbean. For centuries, these birds and many others completed long-distance migrations in tune with other ancient spring rhythms, such as the trees budding out into leaves in myriad shades of green. But that’s changing. Spring – with its “pulse of food and pulse of life” – arrives earlier than it used to, driven by warmer temperatures, said Ellen Robertson, who co-authored a recent bird migration study while doing post-doctoral research at Oklahoma State University. The study found a mismatch between earlier spring green up and the timing of migration for some long-distance travelers, leaving birds such as the black-throated blue, “out of sync." (via USA Today)
Photo by Christopher Ellis, Hooded Warbler — Bryant Park, New York, NY.
6. More on climate's effects on birds - this from a remote Greek island: Gently holding a blackcap warbler in his palm, ornithologist Christos Barboutis blew on its feathers to reveal the size of its belly: a good indicator of how far the bird can migrate. Acutely vulnerable to climate change, migratory birds offer valuable clues to scientists about how our warming planet is affecting wildlife: from their shifting migration patterns to their body weight. "Observing them warns us if something is changing or going wrong," said Barboutis, a researcher at the Hellenic Ornithological Society. (via Phys Org)
7. Lost and now found (and it is such a cool looking bird): A rare bird that was believed to have been “lost” for over 50 years has been photographed for the first time in history. The New Britain Goshawk is found only on the island of New Britain in Papua New Guinea. According to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), the last scientific record of the bird species is from 1969. That record is kept at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. Vierus was part of a WWF group that was led into the island’s forests by local community members. As they explored, Vierus took various photos of bird species, including the goshawk. (via KNOE News)
8. Well, boo to 63% of Swiss voters!: Switzerland, known for natural beauty like pristine lakes and majestic Alpine peaks, ranks among the world’s richest countries whose plant and animal life is under the greatest threat. Environmentalists were seeking better protections for the country’s biodiversity in a nationwide vote that culminated Sunday. Final official results showed more than 63% of voters casting ballots had rejected the initiative that aimed to boost public funding to encourage farmers and others to set aside lands and waterways to let the wild develop more, and increase the total area allocated for green spaces that must remain untouched by human development. The contest was decided by mail-in ballots followed by a morning of in-person voting Sunday. (via AP News)
9. He had no idea what he was getting into - a fun read: One day in late May, I spotted some weedy crud on my porch sconce. It looked like Dorothy’s Scarecrow had died right here in Westchester. This particular light fixture is about seven feet off the ground. To see what the mess was, I held my phone high overhead and took a picture. It was, of course, a bird’s nest, containing four tiny light-blue eggs. We installed a wifi security camera taped to the house oversees a finch nest. (via New York Magazine)
Photo by Christopher Ellis, Mourning Warbler — Bryant Park, New York, NY.
10. Weaver ants on the prowl: Deep in the lowlands of South Asia, the forests are alive with fruit-eating barbets and nectar-sipping sunbirds. But one group of birds is relatively scarce: insect eaters. Now, a study published last month in Ecology Letters may explain why. Weaver ants—forest-dwelling ants that live in the lowlands and ferociously prey on small invertebrates—might be gobbling up the birds’ food source and pushing them to higher elevations. Many mountain ranges have what Corrie Moreau, an entomologist at Cornell University, describes as an “ant line” at about 1000 to 1500 meters in elevation, above which the presence of the tiny invertebrates tends to drop off. Studies have shown this elevation is where some animals, such as small mammals in the Philippines, start to thrive, which ecologists think is likely because of the lack of ants. (via Science)
11. Can an avian-inspired drone help scientists understand agile perching maneuvers? Apparently, yes: Avian perching maneuvers are one of the most frequent and agile flight scenarios, where highly optimized flight trajectories, produced by rapid wing and tail morphing that generate high angular rates and accelerations, reduce kinetic energy at impact. While the behavioral, anatomical, and aerodynamic factors involved in these maneuvers are well described, the underlying control strategies are poorly understood. Experimental manipulation of the wings that would be difficult or unethical with animals reveals the morphing factors that are critical for optimal perching maneuver performance of birds and morphing-wing drones. (via Nature)
12. Birds aren't foolish, even if they may look silly…running says this study.: Looking silly when they run saves birds energy—and some dinosaurs may have done the same When humans want to move fast—barring speed-walking competitions—we pick up our feet. But when birds need to get somewhere quickly, they tend to always keep one foot on the ground, leading to a strange-looking gait that scientists call “grounded running.” (via Scientific American)
13. Lights Out San Antonio: Audubon Texas is asking residents to go lights out during the 2024 peak fall bird migration period. The campaign is called 2024 Lights Out, Texas, and the group encouraged Texans to turn off unnecessary lights to minimize light pollution and help migratory birds make their way. The group explained that it’s especially important to decrease light pollution in densely populated areas, where migrating birds can become disoriented as they navigate through the night sky. It's estimated that up to 1 billion birds are killed each year due to collisions with buildings. Audubon Texas also encourages modifying or eliminating reflective glass to help reduce collisions. Peak migration runs through Oct. 29, and fall migration ends around Nov. 30. Find more information at tx.audubon.org. (via Texas Public Radio)
14. Twitchers take note: A new Yellow-browed Warbler colour-ringing project has launched across Britain and Ireland – and birders are being asked to report any sightings. Colour rings have been distributed to ringers across Britain and Ireland, initially focusing on bird observatories and other key migration sites from the Northern Isles down to Cornwall. Yellow-browed Warbler is an ostensibly Asian passerine, breeding in Siberian taiga forests and mostly wintering in South-East Asia. The last few decades have seen a substantial rise in the number of birds recorded in Western Europe. This has led to Yellow-browed Warbler being considered an expected autumn migrant, rather than a rare vagrant, in Britain. (via BirdGuides)
Photo by Christopher Ellis, Ovenbird — Bryant Park, New York, NY.
15. Finally, a great story from the Washington Post - "Now, this place is for the birds": Not long after I bought a dilapidated farm in the Virginia Piedmont, I was surprised to learn that it came with its own farmer. For years, a cattle farmer from up the road, a salt-of-the-earth guy named Travis, rode his big John Deere over and cut the hayfields in late spring and then again in early fall. The arrangement, common out here, works for both parties: The farmers get hay for their cows, and the landowners get their fields mowed for free. But this summer, I delivered bad news to Travis. I asked him not to cut most of my fields and paid him so he could buy his hay elsewhere. For decades — perhaps a couple of centuries — this has been pastureland and hayfields. But no longer. Now, this place is for the birds. (via The Washington Post)
Bird Videos of the Week
Video by WCCO CBS News, “ Hawk viewing on Lake Superior”.
Cornell Live Bird Cam - Busy flock of male Red-winged Blackbirds.
Cornell Live Bird Cam - The 2023–24 Northern Royal Albatross Cam season has officially wrapped!