1. A Crested Caracara can do that to you: In Orlando, FL, it’s not surprising to see peacocks on a busy street. Central Florida is chockablock with birds — exotic, common, wading, diving, hunting, humming, singing, running. I thought I knew them pretty well until the day I came across the crested caracara on audubon.org. The stately brown raptor has a white head and neck, a severe black crest, an orange face and a lethal-looking blue-gray beak. They are elegant hunters but also efficient scavengers. How had I missed an eagle-size bird that looks downright debonair while chasing vultures off roadkill? In a short time, I romanticized the birds so much that I didn’t want to see them at a zoo or in an aviary. (via The Washington Post)
2. Bringing back one of the world’s rarest birds: In 1995, conservationists and scientists embarked on a desperate attempt to save the world’s rarest bird, a blue-gray parrot called the Spix’s macaw. On 11 June, more than a quarter-century after the female flew into oblivion, they plan to release eight Spix’s macaws from captivity into the wild. Twelve more are supposed to follow at the end of the year and still more in the years to come. If everything goes according to plan, these birds will be the vanguard of a new population of Spix’s macaws in their natural habitat. The project, long hampered by infighting and overshadowed by controversy, had to overcome significant scientific hurdles to even come this far. But the biggest challenge still lies ahead. (via Science)
3. Bird groups with a bigger mission: On a crisp late summer night last September, lawn chairs and blankets dotted the lawn of Cherokee Heights Middle School in Madison, Wisconsin. As the sun sank, a crowd of nearly 40 picnickers watched through binoculars as hundreds of swifts began swirling above them before tunneling into one of the school’s chimneys to roost. The group had been gathered by local chapters of the Feminist Bird Club and the BIPOC Birding Club of Wisconsin, two newer birding clubs in the area. Founded in 2019 and 2021 respectively, they focus on holding fun, no-fuss, and low-barrier events aimed at making birding more diverse and inclusive in their city. (via Audubon)
4. Oh dear! Too many geese: They poop on the lawn. They poop in the park. That poop makes its way into the waterways. Officials in one California city have decided that enough is enough. In Foster City, Calif., as in much of the United States, the Canada goose population is booming, and the birds are making a mess. Now the city is saying it may have no choice but to cull them in an attempt to reduce potential risks to the public from the birds’ feces. “We all learn to be tolerant and to coexist with the wildlife, but lately we have been uncovering health hazards,” said Richa Awasthi, the mayor of Foster City, which winds around a lagoon about 22 miles south of San Francisco. Last month, demonstrators let out a rallying cry at a protest: “Let the geese live.” (via The New York Times)
5. Losing instruments in Nature’s orchestra: As the sun set over the Great Meadows National Wildlife Refuge in Sudbury, Joan Walsh spotted one arrival after another from the annual spring migration of birds. Tree swallows over the marsh. A phoebe. A red-winged blackbird. On the horizon, an osprey diving for fish. But these seasonal migrations are a shadow of what they used to be. A landmark study in the journal Science estimates North America has lost about 30% of its bird life since 1970 because of habitat degradation, urbanization and the use of toxic pesticides. That's about 3 billion birds, a drop that has scientists sounding the alarm — in part by highlighting birdsong that's no longer sung. (WBUR)
6. Always newsworthy when Peregrine chicks fledge: For the second year in a row, peregrine falcon chicks have successfully fledged at Harpers Ferry National Historic Park, and wildlife experts said they’re excited because it’s a sign of how the birds have made a comeback from being endangered. Peregrine falcons hadn’t been at the park in West Virginia for much of the past 70 years. Last year, a male falcon in the area mated with a female and had three chicks, but only one survived. This spring, the same male falcon mated with a different female falcon, and they had four chicks, of which three survived. The three chicks have “entered the fledgling phase after they developed feathers enabling them to fly,” according to a statement from the National Park Service. (via The Washington Post)
7. Birds and Bees: Scientists with the U.S. Geological Survey, University of North Dakota and North Dakota State University quantified the economic benefit of grasslands to beekeepers in North and South Dakota. They found that annual beekeeping revenue increased by $7,525 per 10 square kilometers in healthy grassland ecosystems. They also looked at the non-market value of grasslands to migratory birds and found that bird populations increased in grasslands by 2-7% per 10 square kilometers. “Our study shows that grassland conservation is a win-win-win for the birds, the bees and the people of the Dakotas,” said Clint Otto, a USGS scientist and the study’s lead author. (via USGS)
8. Citizen science in action: Using the eyes and ears of public volunteers can stretch the reach of science, according to a new analysis from Erica Stuber from the Department of Wildland Resources and the Ecology Center. Stuber and a team of researchers examined the accuracy of information produced by citizen science apps for monitoring bird populations. Over the past decade such collective public power has benefited science efforts in all sorts of ways, from sorting images of the cosmos to mapping mosquito populations. But the big data collected by such efforts is now outpacing scientists’ ability to effectively use it, especially when it comes to decisions about wildlife populations. (via Utah State University)
9. Colorful but not necessarily wanted: A brightly colored subtropical songbird from Asia could colonize Britain’s gardens and change the dawn chorus for ever. The highly invasive red-billed leiothrix could threaten native bird populations, particularly competing with garden birds such as the robin and blackbird. Early signs suggest this little bird – olive green with a bright red beak and yellow throat – may already be establishing itself in gardens and woodlands in southern parts of the country. The main cluster of sightings is around Wiltshire and Somerset, with a handful of reports coming from farther afield in south Wales, Merseyside and Kent. Also known as pekin robins in the caged bird trade, it is likely these populations have escaped from captivity, but it is not yet known if they are breeding. (via The Guardian)
10. Of course they have personalities!: Personality is not unique to humans. New research published in the Royal Society Open Science journal demonstrates that zebra finches have personalities, and some traits are consistent over two years of the birds' lives. In addition to showing stable personality, zebra finches innovated solutions to novel foraging tasks, where sometimes success was related to personality type. The authors measured a host of traits -- dominance, boldness, activity, risk-taking, aggressiveness and obstinacy -- in the short term (two weeks) and the long term (two years). (via Science Daily)
11. 37 million (commercial) birds: Arizona officials have confirmed the first cases in the Southwest of a bird flu that has led to the deaths of 37 million birds from commercial farms in the central and eastern U.S. The disease was spotted after tests by federal wildlife officials in three wild cormorants that had been found dead in a park in the Phoenix suburb of Scottsdale, Arizona Game and Fish officials announced this week. The disease has not yet been found in any domestic birds or in commercial operations. But it is a concern, according to Glenn Hickman, president and CEO of Hickman Family Farms, one of the largest egg producers in the Southwest. Hickman operates four chicken ranches in Arizona, one in California and two in Colorado. (via Huffpost)
12. Rare bird alert in Nepal: The list of bird species found in Nepal has now grown to 891, after a bird never before seen in the country was spotted at a national park in the south. Photographers Raju Tamang and Prem Bomjan snapped a picture of the Chinese pond heron (Ardeola bacchus) in Chitwan National Park, better known for its Bengal tigers and greater one-horned rhinos. “I found the bird early morning on June 1,” said Tamang, adding he enjoys going on morning walks around the national park area photographing the birds. The Chinese pond heron is typically found in wetland areas in China and parts of Southeast Asia. (via Mongabay)
13. For you kitchen or office window birders: No matter how many times a ruby-throated hummingbird flutters by, they're always mesmerizing. It'll take a couple weeks of patience for seed-eating birds to stop by, but it's well worth the wait. Pro tip: The Audubon Society recommends mixing 1/4 cup of sugar with 1 cup of water to make hummingbird "nectar." No need to buy that red-dyed stuff at the store. Add these window bird feeders to your home office: Nature Anywhere hummingbird feeder, $30. Nature Gear window bird feeder, $20. (Thanks to Axios' Dani Alberti for the suggestion!) (via Axios)
14. And finally, a shout-out to Dr. Amanda Rodewald at the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology: Every year, the American Ornithological Society (AOS) presents a range of awards honoring members for their ornithological research and their service to the Society. The work of the 2022 awardees ranges across the spectrum of ornithological science, from conservation to ecology to evolution, and includes invaluable service to the AOS and ornithology. This year’s awardees represent the highest quality contributions by our members to the scientific study and conservation of birds. (via EurekaAlert)
Bird Photo of the Week
Photo by Hap Ellis, Glossy Ibis, Scarborough Marsh, ME.
Bird Videos of the Week
By Cornell Lab Bird Cams, “Curios Red-tailed Hawk Chick”.
Cornell Live Bird Cam - More Hawk Balcony.
Cornell Live Bird Cam - West Texas Hummingbirds.