*We are late to your mailbox due to WiFi issues over the Pacific Ocean. Apologies!
1. Let's begin with a wonderful piece by Kenn Kaufman remembering when a single bird in North America had such a human impact: On a Sunday afternoon 50 years ago, a remarkable bird was identified in Massachusetts. Within hours, excited phone calls were radiating out across the country. Within days, the bird was featured on national television news and on the front page of the New York Times. Within a week, thousands of birders had come to see what many were already calling “the bird of the century.” The bird was an adult Ross’s Gull, and its discovery at Newburyport, Massachusetts, established the first record ever in the Lower 48 states. Up to that time, Ross’s Gull was an almost mythical bird. A small, delicate gull of the high Arctic, flushed with rosy pink and with a narrow black neck ring in breeding plumage, it was known to nest only along the northeastern coast of Siberia. (via Audubon)
* Note: Kenn's latest book, "The Birds that Audubon Missed", is a fun read
2. Audubon reporting from Wahington with advice for the 119th Congress: Protecting the lands, waters, and shorelines that birds depend on benefits far more than just our feathered friends. These investments strengthen community resilience against floods, wildfires, and other climate-driven disasters; enhance agricultural productivity by making farm and ranchland more sustainable; and boost local economies through outdoor recreation and tourism. With the 119th Congress now fully underway, the National Audubon Society urges lawmakers to continue the longstanding bipartisan tradition of investing in conservation. These investments benefit both people and birds across the U.S. and hemisphere. (via Audubon)
By Hap Ellis, Spotted Towhee – Portland Oregon.
3. And speaking of Washington, there is this from Hawaii Public Radio - the Hakalau Forest National Wildlife Refuge has seen half its field staff cut by Federal spending cuts: HPR heard from one of the estimated 2,200 probationary federal workers in the Department of the Interior terminated under orders from Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency. We first reported the story of Eric-Preston Hamren. He was two months shy of permanent status at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service — he got the bad news on Valentine's Day. HPR met him back in December at Beginner Bird School, which he runs as a volunteer. The weekend class has a waitlist that's now more than two years long. It takes place at the Hakalau Forest National Wildlife Refuge on Hawaiʻi Island. Half of the refuge's field staff got walking papers. (via Hawaii Public Radio)
4. Pushing back bird diversification by - wait for it - 20 million years: A research team led by Professor Min Wang from the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology (IVPP) at the Chinese Academy of Sciences has discovered two bird fossils in Jurassic-era rocks in Fujian Province, southeast China. Dating back approximately 149 million years, these fossils help bridge a spatiotemporal gap in the early evolution of birds. They also provide the strongest evidence to date that birds had already diversified by the end of the Jurassic period. This study was published in Nature. (via SciTechDaily)
5. Australia's Superb Lyrebird is one cool (and one smart) bird- read why: A beloved Australian bird best known for its stunning tail and powers of mimicry may have a cunning hidden talent. New research has revealed the superb lyrebird to be a resourceful farmer, creating micro-habitats to host and fatten its prey before returning later to feast. Scientists from La Trobe University observed the ground-dwelling birds working to create habitats suitable for their diet of worms, centipedes and spiders. In a new paper published in the Journal of Animal Ecology, the researchers found that lyrebirds arranged litter and soil on the forest floor in ways that promote more prey. (via La Trobe University)
6. This is concerning - but unfortunately not surprising: Covid-19 face masks, a chocolate wrapper from 1994 and a 30-year-old polystyrene burger box – the nests of Amsterdam’s Eurasian coots chart changes to consumer society through plastic waste. Usually, Eurasian coots (Fulica atra) build their waterside nests from scratch each year using natural, biodegradable materials like rushes, reeds and leaves. But in Amsterdam’s busy city centre, such materials are in short supply along the riverbanks. Instead, these coots rely on plastic litter to build their nests, says Auke-Florian Hiemstra at the Naturalis Biodiversity Center in Leiden. (via New Scientist)
By Hap Ellis, Green Heron - Green Cay Nature Center, Boynton Beach, FL.
7. Call us skeptical: The UK’s installed capacity of solar power expanded rapidly over the past decade to reach 17.2 gigawatts (GW) in 2024 – enough electricity to power roughly 4 million homes. The government aims to raise solar generation capacity to 70 GW by 2035. And by 2050, the government’s advisers estimate that as much as 90 GW of solar power may be needed to achieve net zero emissions. Building solar farms – large-scale installations of solar panels on agricultural land – will have to be done carefully, to avoid exacerbating another environmental crisis: the dwindling variety of wildlife, or biodiversity. However, surprisingly few studies have examined the impact of solar farms on biodiversity. (via The Conversation)
8. Always fun to post articles from India if only for the pictures of birds we may never see otherwise! (via Travel and Leisure Asia)
9. India may be hard to get to but not Portland, Oregon, and if you are a birder Sauvie island is a must: Wide-eyed bird appreciators raised their binoculars to the sky on Portland’s Sauvie Island Sunday morning to catch ever-changing scenes of wintering birds and early spring migration. Leading them to fields of snow geese, hiding spots of sandhill cranes and hangouts for stealth owls was Ricky Allen, a retired Portland educator who used to fish off Sauvie Island until he was hooked by birds 28 years ago. (via Oregon Live)
10. Or if not Portland, how about Montana to count raptors: “Okay here’s a roughie on a fence post, a wooden fence post,” says biologist Beth Mendelsohn. She spots a brown and white rough-legged hawk, one of the several bird-of-prey species that calls the Mission Valley home during the winter. “So, this is a nice one to look at if you guys want to look, it’s a rough-legged but it’s an adult male, looks a little different. The most beautiful of the raptors I would say,” Mendelsohn says. Rough-legged hawks get their name from being feathered all the way down their legs, which is unusual for a hawk. During fall migration they come here from the Arctic, and then in spring they go back north to breed. In Montana, they can only be found in the winter. The Mission Valley is an especially good place to see rough-legged hawks and other species of raptors — like golden eagles, prairie falcons, red-tailed hawks, northern harriers, and more. (via Montana Public Radio)
By Hap Ellis, Common Gallinule - Green Cay Nature Center, Boynton Beach, FL.
11. When you need to teach a Rufous-collared Sparow its song apparently only a robot will do: The song of the male chingolo, or rufous-collared sparrow (Zonotrichia capensis), is one of the most distinctive sounds in South America. In just a few seconds, this small bird—light brown or whitish with black spots—delivers its melody, composed of two to four introductory notes and a final trill. Each family of chingolos has its unique song, which they sing throughout their lives. But first, they must learn it. This behavior is deeply rooted in the interaction between young and adult male chingolos, who transmit the patterns of their song. But what happens when this learning is interrupted—when habitat loss, population decline, or the disappearance of adult tutors break the chain of transmission? (via National Geographic)
12. The Guardian picked up on this study, which we've covered but for those who missed it: Which songs birds sing can – as with human music – be influenced by age, social interactions and migration, researchers have found. Not all birds learn songs, but among those that do, individuals, neighbourhoods and populations can produce different collections of tunes, akin to different music albums. Now researchers have found that changes in the makeup of a group of birds can influence factors including which songs they learn, how similar those songs are to each other and how quickly songs are replaced. Dr Nilo Merino Recalde, the first author of the study, from the University of Oxford, said: “This is very interesting, I think, partly because it shows that there are all these kind of common elements at play when it comes to shaping learned traits, [similar to] what happens with human languages and human music.” (via The Guardian)
13. Let's finish with an article fittingly entitled the "Weekend Long Read" and it speaks to a familiar issue near and dear to our hearts here: As countries worldwide install wind turbines as part of their move to green energy, scientists are urging caution, warning that the exploitation of wind power may come at the expense of vulnerable species. Offshore wind farms, a key source of renewable energy, are growing rapidly, with global operational capacity reaching 80.9 gigawatts by the end of 2024, according to Renewable UK, a green energy trade association. China leads the world in both production and installation, accounting for over half of the global capacity with more than 41 gigawatts. In 2024 alone, China added 4.04 million kilowatts of offshore wind power. (via Caixing Global)
By Hap Ellis, Anhinga - Green Cay Nature Center, Boynton Beach, FL.
Bird Videos of the Week
Video by CBC News, #TheMoment - A Brawl between a Canada Goose and Bald Eagle was caught on Camera.