1. That time of the year: One of the country’s longest-running community science projects is about to get underway: Audubon Society’s 122nd annual Christmas Bird Count. Though the event doesn’t actually take place on Christmas Day — its timespan runs from Dec. 14 through Jan. 5 — participants do, indeed, count birds. Here’s how it started, how it works, why it matters, and how anyone can join the effort. The first count, held Christmas 1900, was the brainchild of ornithologist Frank Chapman, an officer in the then newly founded Audubon Society. Chapman’s idea was to offer people an alternative activity to the tradition of Christmas bird hunts — count instead of kill. (via WTTW News)
2. The Cahows’ keeper: Jeremy Madeiros is the principal scientist for terrestrial conservation in Bermuda, the only place in the world where Cahows nest. That makes him the caretaker for the entire species, a job that’s equal parts ornithologist, helicopter parent, and stuntman. And Cahows, also known as Bermuda Petrels, need all the help they can get. The docile, ground-nesting creatures have flirted with extinction for centuries. They’ve been devoured by rats, cats, dogs, hogs, and humans; assailed by tropicbirds; ravaged by DDT; and most recently menaced by climate change as hurricanes have grown stronger and sea levels have risen. The petrels’ keeper has adopted extreme measures to help them, breaking with the hands-off style of his forebear and decades of Bermuda tradition. (via Audubon Magazine)
3. Saving native forest birds on Maui: A technique described as “mosquito birth control” is being proposed by federal and state conservation agencies as a way to prevent the extinction of Hawaii’s native forest birds as they fall victim to disease. If the Hawaiian honeycreepers are to be saved, then “immediate action” needs to be taken to significantly reduce or eliminate nonnative mosquitoes that carry and spread avian malaria in East Maui. Proposed by the National Park Service and the state Department of Land and Natural Resources, the project would use the “incompatible insect technique,” a mosquito suppression tactic that uses a common bacteria called wolbachia that affects their reproduction and ability to fertilize eggs. (via Maui News)
4. The search for lost birds: Birdwatchers around the world are being called on to turn detective and help in a search for some of the rarest birds on Earth. The global Search for Lost Birds, launched today, presents researchers, conservationists and the global birdwatching community with a Top 10 Most Wanted list of birds that have been lost to science, including the Siau scops owl, which was last seen in 1866. The Most Wanted list, a joint effort between Re:wild, American Bird Conservancy and BirdLife International, also includes the South Island kōkako in New Zealand, Peru’s Vilcabamba brush-finch and the Himalayan quail in northern India. The 10 birds are an extension of Re:wild’s Search for Lost Species program, which was launched in 2017. (via The Guardian)
5. How they do it: Ruby-throated hummingbirds use the same energy-conserving strategy to survive overnight fasts and build the fat stores they need to fuel long migrations, shows a study published in eLife. The findings help prove a long-held suspicion among scientists who study hummingbirds. They also provide new insights on the rules the birds use to determine whether to conserve energy or stockpile fat. Tiny ruby-throated hummingbirds constantly eat sugary nectar to fuel the rapid wing movements that allow them to hover. To conserve energy during their overnight fasts, the birds can shift into an energy-saving mode called torpor by lowering their body temperature and slowing their metabolism up to 95%. (via Science Daily)
6. BBC’s take on the Songs of Disappearance: An album made up entirely of the tweets and squawks of endangered Australian birds has debuted in the top five of the country's Aria music charts. Songs of Disappearance is surpassing the likes of Abba and The Weeknd - not to mention Christmas favourites Michael Bublé and Mariah Carey. Created by BirdLife Australia, the album features the birdsongs of 53 of Australia's most threatened species. Some sounds took hours of waiting in the bush to record one short tweet. When it was released on 3 December, a social media campaign was launched to get the album into Australia's Aria music sales charts - and it worked. Songs of Disappearance has made history by becoming the first album of its kind to chart in the top five. (via BBC)
7. Too soon?: The rare migratory whooping crane, an iconic animal of the Texas Gulf Coast, may see some of its endangered species protections removed under a review proposed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. But environmental groups say it’s far too early to change the bird’s conservation status. Around 500 cranes currently make their way from Canada to the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge in Texas every winter. This is the only wild migratory population of the cranes, the tallest and rarest birds in North America. While the population’s numbers may seem small, the whooping crane is a conservation success story. But that good news is not enough to warrant loosening the bird's federal protections, some conservationists say. (via Texas Public Radio)
8. More on lights-out campaigns – this time from Austin: Earlier this year, Austin City Council members and Travis County commissioners passed resolutions supporting Lights Out Austin. The city’s and county’s lights-off efforts got into full swing this fall. Nicole Netherton, executive director of Travis Audubon, an Austin-based nature conservancy group that co-sponsors Lights Out Austin, says it’s too soon to tell whether the program is working. Why? There’s just not enough evidence — in the dreadful form of dead birds — or data yet. In Austin, Lights Out efforts call on non-essential building lights to be switched off from 11 pm-6 am during the August-to-November fall migration and during the March-to-May spring migration. (via Culture Map Austin)
9. Christmas turkeys for (Red) Kites: The culmination of Christmas dinner for one family I know is chucking the turkey carcass out on the lawn for red kites to rip to pieces. This spectacle chimes with the Tudorbethan excesses of the festive season in Merrie England. The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds warns against luring predatory avifauna into domestic settings with meat scraps. It isn’t just that the associated sage and onion stuffing is outside their usual dietary range. The raptors could also get the wrong idea about how to behave around humans. But it is hard to persuade an off-duty corporate financier that he shouldn’t hurl a turkey skeleton across his garden with a cry of “Happy Christmas!” after he has partaken of the best that Berry Bros & Rudd has to offer. Nor is he alone in feeding red kites. It is the reason they have become garden birds in parts of Oxfordshire and the Thames Valley. (via Financial Times)
10. And speaking of feeding birds this winter: When you attract birds to your yard, you’re creating an environment where they concentrate and mix in ways that are rare in the wild, sometimes making it easier for diseases to spread among them. That hit home this summer, when a mysterious avian ailment killed East Coast and Midwest yard visitors and spurred advisories in many states. While that specific cause for alarm has waned, your drive to keep birds healthy all year should not. (via Audubon)
11. And a look at the world beneath winter bird feeders: Rhodes isn’t your typical artist. Before teaching herself wildlife conservation photography, she worked in comedy as a ventriloquist. It’s a career that gave her an interest in new perspectives and a tolerance for failure. She brought that to bear last December with a four-month effort to snap images of small, fast animals from underneath her yard’s bird feeder. As birds ate from her SquirrelBuster Classic feeder, hung in a crabapple tree, they often dropped seed on the ground, where Rhodes had placed a Canon 5D Mark IV DSLR in a protective camera box. (via Audubon Magazine)
12. Good for business, bad for birds?: New ferry service planned for Coney Island would cut the commuting time for people who work there, like employees at the J-R Market near where a pier for the ferries is to be built. Wilton Cartagena, the owner of the store, said most of his employees live in the Bronx and now spend four hours going to and from work. He said it would also bring customers to a neighborhood that has been “very neglected for a long time.” But what is good for business may come at the expense of wildlife. And some residents are angry about the ferry project after hearing that scientists for the city’s parks department said that city officials had pushed ahead with a plan to build the ferry landing despite concerns that the wildlife’s food chain would be disrupted and toxic pollutants might be released. (via The New York Times)
Bird Photo of the Week
Photo by Rick Bunting, Snowy Owl.
Bird Videos of the Week
By Great Big Story, “Taking Birdwatching to the Extreme”.
Cornell Live Bird Cam - Night Feeder.
Cornell Live Bird Cam - Albatross Egg.