1. Let’s start with Nashville’s “dumfounding” response to 150,000 purple martins massing for their southern migration – a great read: When you don’t know what’s coming, the whole glorious spectacle of it can catch you off guard. There you are on a downtown Nashville sidewalk, gawking at the tourists on the transportainment vehicles or just listening to the music pouring from the open-doored bars, when it begins to dawn on you that the sky is full of birds. You haven’t come to Nashville to see birds. It’s never crossed your mind to go looking for birds. But this is more birds than you have ever seen in one place before, and what they are doing is remarkable. As evening comes on, they are wheeling high above the skyscrapers like stars in reverse, moving like a school of fish, flowing like a river made not of water but of animated silhouettes. And all that motion is set against a summer sunset of deep oranges and pinks and golds. (via The New York Times)
2. The Atlantic has a long and interesting piece on owls: In the moments before seeing an owl comes a feeling like intuition. I will not forget one night when I stood on a balcony in suburban Sydney, and every wakeful creature in the surrounding bushland abruptly froze. Even the frogs seemed to want to renounce their noisy bodies. Who goes there? Seconds later, a powerful owl (the name of a species native to Australia) dropped onto the railing, and I, too, nearly leaped out of my skin. The owl was the size of a terrier, but languidly buoyant in the way of a day-old Mylar balloon, and to my ears silent. In the pin-drop quiet, it bounced along the balustrade. I never heard its talons touch the metal. The owl itself, I knew, had such sharp hearing that it could make out a possum’s heart pounding beneath its fur. Unseen, a second owl—mate to the first, I presumed—loosed a deep, woodwind hoot that carried. (via The Atlantic)
BNI highly recommends Jennifer Ackerman’s latest book, mentioned in this article, “What an Owl knows”.
3. Canada’s “original stewards” reconnect to their land and culture: Every year, when the frozen streams have melted and greenery emerges after months of winter stillness, Dolcy Meness knows it's time. Packing their truck, she and a colleague set off through the densely forested hills of Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg territory, an Algonquin First Nation in the province of Quebec. After a few hours they reach their destination. Parking the truck, they make their way through forest until reaching a narrow stream. Kneeling on its mossy bank, Meness carefully places a small device in the water. Over a period of one year, the device will collect data on the water's temperature, PH, salinity and conductivity. But even before any data is gathered, Meness and her colleague are on the look out for indications that something is off. Using a "two-eyed seeing approach", Meness and fellow Nagadjitòdjig Akì guardians draw on the strengths of indigenous knowledge alongside Western science to monitor the impacts of extractive industries, like logging, on their territory. (via BBC)
4. “99% of birds, within five minutes, will leave something in the bag.” Read on to find out what and why: There has been a lot of medical news in recent years about the importance of a healthy gut microbiome for humans. Recent studies have linked the beneficial bacteria in our guts to everything from immune function to mental health, and grocery store shelves are stocked with probiotic products from yogurt to kombucha to sauerkraut that claim they’ll help us cultivate the right microbes to improve our well-being. Birds host bacteria in their guts, too, and a new study published in the journal Molecular Ecology analyzed bacterial DNA in bird poop to look at what drives differences among the gut microbiomes of more than a dozen warbler species. The results show that evolution appears to be the biggest factor, opening up new research questions about how bird species diverge and adapt. (via Living Bird Magazine)
5. The New York Times on National Audubon’s internal struggles with its name and its namesake’s past: On the same day George Floyd was murdered by a police officer on a Minneapolis street — Memorial Day, 2020 — Christian Cooper was searching for songbirds in Central Park. Mr. Cooper, who is Black, would be vaulted to fame after a run-in with a white woman who called the police and falsely claimed he was threatening her when he asked her to leash her dog. To David Yarnold, the chief executive of the National Audubon Society at the time, both events demanded a response. The powerful conservation group and pre-eminent bird enthusiasts’ organization needed to weigh in, and even examine itself. Three years later, that long conversation has led the society into an all-out feud over its own handling of race within the organization. Complaints about workplace conditions and the treatment of minority employees and hobbyists are bound up in the question of whether the conservation group should drop its namesake, John James Audubon, who owned slaves. (via The New York Times)
6. A nice shout-out to Birdcast as Fall migration begins: According to BirdCast, ornithologists didn't realize the magnitude of migration that occurred at night until the turn of the 20th century. Fall migration timing varies across the U.S. and even within regions. In the “before times” — prior to BirdCast’s 3-day migration forecasts for the lower 48 states — birders had to guess which nights would be big ones for migration. Crossing continents and oceans, birds rarely stay in the same place their whole lives, and their epic fall migration will soon be hard to miss for many North Americans. Migration is the best time to be a birdwatcher, says the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s Hugh Powell. As days get shorter and weather slowly shifts, birders are preparing for the spectacular fall migration. BirdCast, launched in 2018 by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, released their migration tools for the 2023 season earlier this month. (via USA Today)
7. The remarkable Rufous Hummingbird: Susan Bonfield, Ph.D., director of Environment for the Americas, gave a talk on “The Remarkable Journey of the Rufous Hummingbird: An Update on Protecting the Joy” during this year’s Sedona Hummingbird Festival at the Sedona Performing Arts Center on Friday, July 28. The rufous hummingbird, which weighs about as much as a dime, covers over 3,000 miles during its migration from its breeding grounds in Alaska to its wintering habitat in Mexico, which is the longest migration by body size of any bird on the globe. Its small size and its habit of crossing multiple artificial borders make it a challenging species to study, although it appearsto be under threat from intensive agriculture, climate change and pesticides. “We know that this is a species in very serious decline, and we don’t know why,” Bonfield said. “The current estimation of the population numbers is about 22 million … we think that it has decreased by one half from 1970 to 2019.” (via Sedona Red Rock News)
8. Lights Out D.C. in action: In the U.S., the ubiquity of glass structures and light has created death traps for birds across the country. Conservationists are shining a light on small changes that can have a major, life-saving impact. Each morning, Lisbeth Fuisz walks the streets of Washington, D.C., looking for birds. "It's become a kind of personal mission," she said. But as a volunteer citizen scientist with the group Lights Out D.C., Lisbeth and her team are not looking to the sky but to the ground — collecting dead fowl after they've collided with buildings. It's an issue that motivated the redesign of the bird house at the National Zoo, which houses dozens of species native to North America. It is one of the first [zoos?] in the country to create a structure that is completely bird-friendly. (via News on 6)
9. Sweet story - A hummingbird savior in Mexico City: Gently holding a baby hummingbird between her hands, Catia Lattouf says, “Hello, cute little guy. Are you very hungry?” It’s the newest patient at her apartment in a toney section of Mexico City where she has nursed hundreds of the tiny birds back to health over the past decade. Under Lattouf’s caress, the bird relaxes little by little, allowing her to evaluate it. A young man who rescued it after it fell from a nest onto his patio watched attentively. “It is a broad-billed hummingbird,” the 73-year-old Lattouf said, as she moved an eyedropper to its beak. “Oh, mama, you want to eat!” This is often how Lattouf’s days have gone since she turned her apartment in Mexico City’s Polanco neighborhood into a clinic for sick, injured or infant hummingbirds, about 60 of which currently flit around. (via ABC News)
10. Update on the Lesser Prairie Chicken’s endangered species listing: The latest battle in the war over the lesser prairie chicken came in the U.S. House. For more than a decade, private landholders in western Kansas have pushed back against federal efforts to protect the bird, which scientists say is on the path to extinction. And so federal lawmakers from Kansas turned to one of the few tools they can wield against federal legislation — the Congressional Review Act. Last week, the House approved a resolution expressing its disapproval of the Department of Fish and Wildlife’s rule placing the lesser prairie chicken on the endangered species list, in an effort to eliminate the rule and prevent a new one. President Joe Biden has pledged to veto the resolution, which passed the Senate in May. The vote, coupled with another resolution rejecting the addition of the northern long-eared bat — which lives in parts of Canada and most of the eastern half of the United States — to the endangered species list, were the latest examples of Congress using a 90s-era law to slap down environmental rules issued by the Biden administration. (via The Eagle Tribune)
11. “Skyglow”, nightjars and crepuscular species – an interesting article with several interesting links: In the astronomy community, we typically this of light pollution as an overall negative. Much research points out its negative effect on our sleep and even our observational equipment. It also significantly impacts wildlife; however, according to a new paper from some Belgian, Swiss, and German researchers, not all of that impact is negative. The paper, released in the journal Science of the Total Environment, discusses light pollution’s impact on birds that are typically most active near twilight. Known as crepuscular species, these include a bird called the European Nightjar. This tiny bird, which looks a bit like an American Sparrow, is commonly found on several continents, including Europe, Asia, and Africa. That relatively large range makes it ideal for the experiment Dr. Ruben Evens and his colleagues spread over several institutions had in mind for their experiment. (via Universe Today)
12. 820 ornithologists, 450 scientific talks – can only be this week in London (Ontario, that is): Hundreds of bird experts from Canada, the United States and 39 other countries are in town for the largest annual ornithologist conference in North America. Members of the American Ornithological Society (AOS) and Society of Canadian Ornithologists – Société des ornithologistes du Canada (SCO–SOC) are meeting at RBC Place from Tuesday to Saturday. It's the first time the event is being held in the Forest City. "London's kind of a central meeting place for Canadian bird researchers from across the country," said organizer and research scientist Greg Mitchell. "I'm really excited for everybody to come to London and see London and experience some of the things London has to offer in terms of being a bird-friendly city." (via CBC)
13. Who doesn’t love this “quirky” bird: I am not sure there is a bird as universally loved as the American woodcock. This unusual and entertaining bird is always a crowd-stopper and crowd-pleaser as birders will often gather and watch them for extended periods of time. With each trip to Magee Marsh to look for warblers, there is also the hope and quest to see a woodcock. They can be difficult to find, so usually it is easiest to look for a crowd of birders with their cameras and binoculars pointed toward the forest floor. We’ve also had luck finding them at the Erie Street Cemetery in Cleveland. They are best known for their quirky behavior, in particular their back-and-forth way of walking, in which they seem to be dancing to a slow groove. (via The Chronicle)
14. Take birdwatching to the next level – try recording birdsong: If you were old enough to buy CDs in the ’90s, you may remember listening stations at superstores that featured music by some of nature’s noisiest creatures: birds. These CDs blended classical music like Brahms’ lullaby with the plaintive call of a loon, or smooth jazz coupled with the howls of wolves (“Jazz Wolf,” anyone? It was a 1993 classic). Sometimes the composers even threw in a frog ribbit or cricket chirp in this golden age of nature mashups. Maybe you’re thinking, “Why bother, when I can go to All About Birds and hear those sounds anytime?” The answer is as simple as you want it to be: Because you need something to keep you interested while hiking, because recording bird sounds captures memories, because you like audio journaling, because you want to contribute to research — or because birdsong can be as ephemeral as the bloom of a morning glory, and you want to hold onto it. If you’re inclined to set your bird sounds to smooth jazz later, that’s your prerogative. (via Los Angeles Times)
15. As we hold on to the last weeks of summer, a belated list of best national parks for summer birding: Birds’ spring migration and mating season comes to a close by mid-summer as warmer temperatures arrive. But national parks across the United States that protect a range of threatened species remain a great place for bird-watching. Experts with the birding app Birda ranked the top national parks you can visit to check out the beauty of birds Birders tend to take it easy in the summer because most species aren't as visible – they no longer need to elicit mating calls or defend territory and are well into raising their young. Exceptions include some juvenile shorebird species, which leave their Arctic breeding grounds by late June and are often seen in marshes or some fields after a heavy rain. (via USA Today)
16. And finally, this travel piece on birding Botswana: A typical safari might give the Big Five top billing, but on a bird-watching tour of Botswana, Travel+Leisure India & South Asia’s contributor discovers that the country’s winged species offer a unique—and thrilling—way of seeing the African wilderness. Halfway through our birding safari in Botswana, my wife, our two sons, and I had somehow identified more than 150 winged species—no small feat for a family that had only recently taken up bird-watching as a hobby. We’d spotted giant kingfishers, pied kingfishers, and woodland kingfishers (the boys are big on kingfishers). We’d seen spindly saddle-billed storks and graceful herons, bee-eaters, sunbirds, and a difficult-to-find Pel’s fishing owl, with its orange feathers and black, marble-like eyes. But one little sucker remained elusive: the violet-eared waxbill. (via Travel & Leisure Asia)
Bird Videos of the Week
By National Geographic, “Birds of Puerto Rico”.
Cornell Live Bird Cam - Hummingbirds.
Cornell Live Bird Cam - Ready to fly!