1. When tourists come to Stora Karlso, a limestone-ledged nature reserve off the coast of Sweden, they keep a respectful distance from the many seabirds that call the island home. Like most visitors to wild places, they aim to leave only footprints and take only photos — to slip between the strands of the web of life they’ve come to see. No such luck. In a paper published this month in Biological Conservation, researchers detail how the sudden absence of tourists on Stora Karlso during the pandemic set off a surprising chain reaction that wreaked havoc on the island’s colony of common murres, diminishing its population of newborn birds. (via The New York Times)
2. Albatross expert Dr Henri Weimerskirch, of the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), turned his favorite seabirds into spies two years ago by fixing them up with loggers that could detect the radar of illegal fishing vessels. The information from this project, known as OCEAN SENTINEL, has helped governments select which parts of the ocean to patrol. But Dr Weimerskirch wanted to recruit another, possibly better, species to stealth operations. In late 2020, he returned to the remote Kerguelen Islands, in the southern Indian Ocean, to see if they would cooperate. He told Horizon about his expedition. (via Horizon Magazine)
3. Each spring and fall, an estimated 1 billion birds migrate through the Pacific Flyway, which snakes down from Alaska, along the West Coast of the United States and Mexico, and into South America. Now new research reveals what has been long-suspected but never confirmed: California’s Central Valley and the Colorado River Delta are hotspots for North America’s migratory landbirds. The study, published today in Ornithological Applications, shows that tens of millions of birds depend on the regions’ river and wetland habitat on their journey through a largely dry, arid landscape. (via Audubon)
4. Good news/cool bird: Ashleigh Blackford has seen her share of dramatic bird releases over the years. She vividly recalls California condors soaring high into the sky and San Clemente loggerhead shrikes fluttering free. The tiny Florida grasshopper sparrow, on the other hand, merely hopped out of an open screen and skittered along the ground, says Blackford, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist. Still, it was a thrilling moment to witness: one of the most endangered birds in the continental U.S.—one that just two years ago seemed doomed to extinction—had begun a remarkable comeback. (via National Geographic)
5. Birds play an underrecognized role in spreading tickborne disease due to their capacity for long-distance travel and tendency to split their time in different parts of the world - patterns that are shifting due to climate change. Knowing which bird species are able to infect ticks with pathogens can help scientists predict where tickborne diseases might emerge and pose a health risk to people. A new study published in the journal Global Ecology and Biogeography used machine learning to identify bird species with the potential to transmit the Lyme disease bacterium (Borrelia burgdorferi) to feeding ticks. (via EurekaAlert)
6. Always tricky for birders: When Jackson Hudecki walks through Woodland Cemetery on a cold December morning, the place is almost empty, save for a few people visiting a gravestone, a woman walking her dog, and a small group of birders armed with binoculars and scopes. The century-old cemetery sits atop a bluff overlooking Hamilton Harbour on the west tip of Lake Ontario. Stand on the southwestern edge of the cemetery in winter when the leaves are gone from the trees, and you’ll see a jutting peninsula called Carroll’s Point. It’s an ideal spot for birding. After a half-hour loop, Hudecki, Bird Study Group Director of the Hamilton Naturalist’s Club, has identified 14 species of birds, including a red-tailed hawk, a brown creeper, and a gaggle of Canada geese. (via Atlas Obscura)
7. To watch a bald eagle raid a nesting colony of great blue herons is a gut-churning experience. The adult herons are usually forced to flee, while the eagle cracks open an egg or flies away with a chick. You’d think the herons would want to build their nests as far away from bald eagles as possible. But you’d be dead wrong. Research on the southwest coast of British Columbia shows that herons are deliberately seeking out nesting pairs of eagles—and building right next to them. “You can understand the predator wanting to be near the prey, but not really the other way around,” Vennesland says. “We were amazed. We call it the mafia-protection racket.” (via The Atlantic)
8. Sparrows have different personalities and teach each other about danger, a new study has found, which suggests why the little bird has thrived in cities. Research from Louisiana State University, published in Biology Letters, found that sparrows can communicate with each other about potential dangers in the environment and adapt their behaviour accordingly. Scientists discovered how individual house sparrows reacted to a new object placed near the food bowl in their cage. Some sparrows did not hesitate to feed at their bowl despite the new object, while others were more reluctant to approach the bowl with the unusual object nearby. (via The Telegraph)
9. Check this out: In 2019, a young man named Fahd Qash from Saudi Arabia stumbled upon something unusual while out on a walk. Strolling near a swamp, he spotted a dead eagle with a tracking device strapped to it. Curious, Qash noticed that the GPS tracker had an email address printed on it. It turns out that the device was fitted to the eagle in Kazakstan as part of a study of the flight paths of Steppe eagles. This particular eagle was one of 20 that had been tracked since 2018 and the resulting map of their travels is astonishing. Interestingly, they all appear to conspicuously avoid flying over water, as the Caspian Sea, Red Sea, and the Persian Gulf are all free from their trails. (via My Modern Met)
Bonus: From “hot ducks” to snowy owls, New York City has seen a spate of avian celebrities in the last few years. These often surprising species flap into town and attract thousands of admirers on social media, thickets of stories in the news and flocks of birders in person. The most recent was a snowy owl that alighted on ball fields in Central Park on Wednesday. Here’s a rundown of some of the city’s feathered luminaries. (via The New York Times)
Bird Photo of the Week
By Hap Ellis, Barred Owl.
Bird Videos of the Week
By Lesley the Bird Nerd, “Dark-eyed Juncos”.
Cornell Live Bird Cam - One day old Albatross!
Cornell Live Bird Cam - Clever Acorn Woodpecker.