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1. Let’s start with a remarkable accomplishment: On Feb. 9, Peter Kaestner stood in the shadow of majestic Tinuy-an Falls on the Philippine island of Mindanao, on the cusp of a record he’d spent seven decades chasing and worried that he’d arrived too late. For years, nobody alive had seen and identified more bird species than Mr. Kaestner. A retired American diplomat, he is birding’s ultimate “big lister,” a star of the small but growing subculture of hypercompetitive bird watchers who scour the globe vying to see as many species as possible. An obsessive birder since childhood, Mr. Kaestner woke up that morning in February with 9,997 birds on his personal “life list” — more than 90 percent of Earth’s scientifically recognized species and three away from a singular milestone. But he felt hurried. A few weeks earlier, in an essay for the American Birding Association, he had outlined his plans to become the first person to document 10,000 sightings; shortly after, new information forced him to expedite his plans. (via The New York Times)
2. “Attenborough’s strange bird” – “spectacular and important” fossil: A peculiar fossil has helped scientists discover an unusual bird that lived among the dinosaurs 120 million years ago, and the find is changing the way researchers think about avian evolution. The previously unknown species has been named Imparavis attenboroughi, which means “Attenborough’s strange bird” in Latin in honor of British naturalist Sir David Attenborough. All birds descended from dinosaurs, and some of the earliest ones resembled them. But Imparavis, which belonged to a diverse bird group called enantiornithines, likely looked more like the birds we’re familiar with today, according to a new study published Tuesday in the journal Cretaceous Research. (via CNN)
3. From Emily Raboteau’s book “Lessons for Survival: Mothering Against the Apocalypse”, a lovely excerpt on murals in NYC that bring “wonder and delight”: If I can be called a bird-watcher, my spark was a pair of burrowing owls, painted on the narrow storefront gate of a shuttered real estate business on 145th Street, in Harlem, that brokers single-room-occupancy housing for two hundred dollars a week. I spotted them after ice-skating with one of my kids, at the rink in the shadow of towering smokestacks at Riverbank State Park, a concession to our community for the massive wastewater treatment plant hidden beneath it. It was midway through the Trump years: January, but not cold like Januaries when I was little, not cold enough to see your breath. It wasn’t snowing, and it wasn’t going to snow. The owls watched me quizzically, with their heads cocked, their long, skinny legs perched on the colored bands of a psychedelic rainbow that seemed to lead off that gray street into another, more magical realm. (via Lit Hub)
4. Saving the Greater Sage Grouse (we hope): The Biden administration proposed Thursday to save an imperiled bird by limiting oil and gas drilling, mining, livestock grazing and other activities across much of the American West. The draft plan for protecting the greater sage grouse — known for its splashy mating dance — sets up a fierce clash with the fossil fuel industry, which has long seen the bird as a barrier to extracting some of the richest oil and gas reserves in the region. The proposal from the Bureau of Land Management, an arm of the Interior Department, outlines several alternatives for managing nearly 67 million acres of the birds’ habitat across 10 Western states. (via The Washington Post)
5. Spring Migration beckons, and raises an age-old question: Lengthening days set off a cascade of events in migratory birds that culminates in the birth of a clutch of chicks. For a migratory bird, good timing is a matter of life or death. Every spring countless warblers, geese, hummingbirds, and more—one in five bird species, all told—leave their winter hideaway on a long trek that eventually leads to mating, nesting and hatching chicks. Knowing when to leave is a delicate calculation for these animals, however. They need to reach breeding sites in plenty of time to successfully reproduce. But if they arrive too soon, winter may not have quite loosened its grip, which puts the birds at risk of starvation. To time this arrival for the highest likelihood of conditions favorable to reproducing, a migratory bird tracks each day’s light length, or photoperiod. (via Scientific American)
6. A quick look at a rare (and beautiful) spoonbill that stopped in a Hong Kong wetland on its way to the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea: I opened the windows to the hide and was greeted by a mass of birds. Hundreds of cormorants, gulls, herons, egrets, ducks and waders, all feeding frantically as the rising tide covered up the fertile mud. Overhead, black kites patrolled half-heartedly, occasionally provoking the other birds to take to the wing in short-lived panic, before settling back down to feed or rest. I witnessed this spectacle at the World Wide Fund for Nature’s Mai Po nature reserve in Hong Kong, justly celebrated as one of the most important wetlands in the world. (via The Guardian)
7. Testing the “climate variability hypothesis” with Neotropic birds: Consider the globe, spinning silently in space. Its poles and its middle, the equator, remain relatively stable, thermally speaking, for the duration of Earth's annual circuit around the sun. The spaces between—Earth's temperate zones—experience seasons with their characteristic temperature extremes. It would follow that animals that evolved in each of these zones should match them physiologically. We expect tropical animals to handle a certain degree of heat but not wild swings in temperature. That seems to be the case for tropical ectotherms, or "cold-blooded" animals such as amphibians, reptiles, and insects. However, in a first-of-its-kind study of "warm-blooded" endotherms, a University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign team found tropical birds can handle thermal variation just fine. (via Phys Org)
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8. For Western Australia magpies the bigger the social group means the smarter the birds – so says this study: If you’ve ever had the pleasure the of encountering Australia’s iconic magpies, you know these birds are intelligent creatures. With their striking black and white plumage, loud warbling voices and complex social behaviours, magpies possess a level of avian brilliance that fascinates birders and scientists alike. But what enables these clever birds to thrive? Are their sharp cognitive abilities innate – something coded into their genetic makeup? Or are magpie smarts more a product of their environment and social experiences? In a new study, we shed light on the “nature versus nurture” debate – at least when it comes to avian intelligence. (via The Conversation)
9. Make way for the Swinhoe’s White-eye – but maybe not actually “invasive” (we’ll see!): As spring arrives, you may notice a new visitor sucking nectar from hummingbird feeders and picking juicy fruits from shrubs and trees. The Swinhoe’s white-eye is a tiny bird with chartreuse plumage, native to places like Southeast Asia, whose population appears to be growing rapidly throughout Southern and Central California. Nearly two decades ago, there was just a small number of them living in Orange County, likely arriving as a result of the pet trade. Now, they can be found as far south as Baja and as far north as San Luis Obispo. A paper recently published in the journal Biological Invasions suggests that given their solid growth in recent years, their population could be on the precipice of exploding. (via LAist)
10. 30,000 people on (a disappointing) “pip watch”: Tens of thousands of people have been watching the livestream of a bald eagles nest in Southern California. They're waiting to see if three eggs will hatch, but it's not clear they will. After weeks of anxious waiting, Pip Watch is now coming to a close, pip being the term for a tiny crack or hole eaglets make when they're emerging. More than 30,000 eagle-eyed fans have been tuning in to the livestream to check on the three eggs Mama Jackie laid at the end of January in the San Bernardino National Forest, a more than one-hour drive away from LA. Sandy Steers is the executive director of Friends of Big Bear Valley, the nonprofit that runs the cameras. She says they've been looking for movement since Pip Watch started two weeks ago. Any kind of little bump or crack or hole, a tiny hole in the eggshell that shows that a chick is working its way out. (via National Public Radio)
11. CRISPR/Cas9 - can it help control Avian flu? It’s complicated: New research shows that CRISPR, the gene editing technique, could make chickens more resistant to bird flu. But its use raises many ethical and scientific issues. Recently, a group of scientists announced a breakthrough approach to combat Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (bird flu or avian flu), a severe illness of birdsthat has killed millions of chickens worldwide since it emerged in 1996 and continues to devastate bird populations. This disease has quickly become a potential threat to human health and has affected both food prices and availability. Their approach uses a gene-editing technique called CRISPR/Cas9. In this case, CRISPR was used to alter chickens’ genetic code to make chickens more resistant to avian flu. While this was a fascinating use of the technology, any time scientific innovation affects the food we eat, it becomes a sensitive issue. (via Scientific American)
12. Good news for the Gulf – newly launched Mississippi Sound Estuary program: Mississippi Sound is a major ecological lynchpin for the Gulf of Mexico that supports hundreds of bird and wildlife species, as well as a unique coastal culture and strong economy. Fed by several rivers and streams, the estuary includes barrier islands, wetlands, and maritime forests, and stretches beyond Mississippi’s borders to support healthy coastal ecosystems in Louisiana and Alabama. The newly launched Mississippi Sound Estuary Program will bring together diverse stakeholders around a common goal of conserving the watershed, its natural resources, culture, and the communities it touches. Audubon Delta has been a strong advocate for the program’s formation as a valuable tool to create a comprehensive, science-based plan that can guide coastal management, restoration, and conservation efforts in order to maximize benefits to birds and people. (via Audubon)
13. Whatever it takes, at least for this grey seal: The only certainty about the natural world is that it's always surprising. Experts are reporting what they say is a unique interaction between a grey seal (Halichoerus grypus) and a sea eagle (Haliaeetus albicilla) that has never been caught on camera before – and the dealing wasn't friendly at all. Bird watcher Clare Jacobs captured photos of the encounter while out walking around Newtown Harbour on the Isle of Wight with her daughter Megan, a paleontologist from the University of Portsmouth in the UK. The mother and daughter saw the sea eagle (also known as a white-tailed eagle) swooping towards the water at high tide. As it approached the water, an adult grey seal appeared from the depths, barking at the bird and then spitting a stream of water in its direction. (via Science Alert)
14. All we can say on this subject is “let’s hope so”: Norway is sacred ground for nature lovers. It’s home to 60,000 of the world’s species, including 450 species of birds—250 of which nest within the varied ecosystems of the country. It’s geographical position in the northern part of Europe allows the country to experience significant bird migration events, with numerous species passing through or arriving to breed during the spring and summer months, and then departing for wintering grounds in autumn. Norwegian bird researchers are about to employ a new approach to studying these annual bird migration patterns, through the use of weather radar data, which may help to protect our sky-fairing friends on their long-distance journeys. We’ve come a long way from discovering migration in 1822, when a white stork shot down in Germany was found with an African spear through its neck—evidence that it had migrated from far south of Europe. (via Forbes)
15. Oil slick and oiled birds off California (once again): Concerns for wildlife are growing in Huntington Beach after at least seven birds, possibly drenched in oil, have been found in the last 24 hours after the water was impacted by a sheen. A roughly 2.5-mile-long oil sheen was spotted in the ocean water off the coast of Huntington Beach last year, leading to an uptick in tar balls on the shore and wildlife impacted by the incident. The Coast Guard's Sector Los Angeles-Long Beach Command Center was notified of the oil sheen the evening of March 7. Wildlife rescue teams have since scoured the area to keep an eye out for animals that may have been affected by the incident. On Thursday, the teams spotted another bird that appeared to have potentially been oiled. A total of sent birds were coated in what experts believe may be oil; testing will confirm that. (via NBC Los Angeles)
16. Let’s finish with a fun (and quick) CNN piece on a reporter struggling to report the story while being dive-bombed … (via CNN)
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Bird Videos of the Week
Video by Inside Edition, “Wildlife Fans Fear for Bald Eagles”.
Cornell Live Bird Cam - Cream-colored Woodpecker.
Cornell Live Bird Cam - Lewis’s Woodpecker.