1.. “…an innovation arms race”: “It is chaos every Tuesday morning,” said Grant Drinkwater, 61, who has experimented with various devices to stop cockatoos from getting into his bins, which are collected that day each week. This otherwise idyllic coastal neighborhood is Ground Zero for what scientists call a potential “innovation arms race” between humans and cockatoos battling for control of the area’s garbage bins. As the cockatoos figure out ways into people’s bins, the humans respond with evermore elaborate devices to protect their garbage. Trashy encounters between man and beast aren’t uncommon, as any suburban resident who has tried to keep raccoons out of the rubbish can attest. But in Australia, the age-old tension has reached wild heights.(via Wall Street Journal)
2. And then there is this about another pesky Australian bird ( as if the race itself isn’t hard enough)…: UCI Worlds are currently being contested in Wollongong, a city in New South Wales nominally under the jurisdiction of the Australian state. But that’s merely a political fiction; the city is clearly governed by an avian junta. And they are extracting their blood price. Let us consider the evidence. Exhibit A: This trespass warning that local magpies forced their sapient subjects to print. Exhibit B: Grace Brown, women’s time trial silver medalist and native Australian, confirmed that locals get no special treatment from the birds. “I’ve been swooped twice already since being here,” she told the Guardian. “So it’s not just the international athletes that are worried about it. I get pretty scared by magpies.” Exhibit C: Testimony from Remco Evenepoel (“A fairly large bird came very close and it just kept following me. It was terrifying. But that’s Australia, apparently”), Stefan Küng (“Yeah, one of our guys has been attacked already by a magpie”), and a grim statistic: a cyclist died in 2019 after hitting a pole while swerving to avoid a magppie. (via Defector)
3. Hats off to 50 years restoring Maine Puffins: In springtime, Maine attracts tourists eager to take short cruises to see puffins on Eastern Egg Rock in the outer Muscongus Bay, off the coast of New Harbor. Often called “sea parrots,” some might think puffins resemble penguins with their black and white feathers, but the stocky, short-winged seabirds are a different species altogether. The fact that these creatures still exist in Maine is largely due to the efforts of a pioneering biologist, Steve Kress, who dedicated 50 years of his life to restoring populations on nesting islands in the Gulf of Maine through Project Puffin. Kress will be awarded a lifetime achievement award by the Natural Resources Council of Maine on Oct. 26 for his work restoring and managing breeding colonies of puffins and seabirds in Maine and globally. (via Bangor Daily Press)
4. Not exactly searching for Emu stories, but this one had a million viewers on Tik Tok, so…: After TikTok user Taylor Blake shared photos of herself snuggling with Emmanuel the emu, who is sick with avian influenza, fans and bird flu experts alike warned of the dangers of touching infected animals. Blake’s videos of Emmanuel went viral this year, getting millions of views on TikTok and boosting the emu's celebrity. But Blake announced Saturday that Emmanuel had fallen ill after a flock of wild Egyptian geese visited Knuckle Bump Farms, the hobby farm in South Florida where the emu lives. Blake said on Twitter that the virus killed 99% of the birds on her farm, including chickens, ducks, geese, turkeys, female black swans and other emus popular with its TikTok followers. (via NBC News)
5. Makes sense if you think about it: Some seabirds don’t just survive storms. They ride them. Streaked shearwaters nesting on islands off Japan sometimes head straight toward passing typhoons, where they fly near the eye of the storm for hours at a time, researchers report in the Oct. 11 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. This strange behavior — not reported in any other bird species — might help streaked shearwaters (Calonectris leucomelas) survive strong storms. Birds and other animals living in areas with hurricanes and typhoons have adopted strategies to weather these deadly storms. In recent years, a few studies using GPS trackers have revealed that some ocean-dwelling birds — such as the frigatebird (Fregata minor) — will take massive detours to avoid cyclones. (via Science News)
6. Actor Lili Taylor riffs on her love of birds and The Birdsong Project: Critically acclaimed actor Lili Taylor loves birds. She's not only a passionate conservationist, she’s also an Audubon board member who supports our work to protect birds and the places they need. Taylor is also featured on an upcoming volume of “For the Birds: The Birdsong Project”—an unprecedented outpouring of creativity from more than 200 of the biggest names in entertainment that raises awareness about the threats birds face and supports Audubon's work. To discover more about her love of birds, the actions she takes to protect them, and her involvement with The Birdsong Project, bird expert David Jeffrey Ringer chatted with Taylor on Instagram. You can watch the entire interview here. (via Audubon)
7. Twitchers on the hunt: In autumn, few people listen more intently to the weather forecast than birders. Especially that hardcore subset of the tribe known as twitchers, who chase down rare birds that wander to our shores from every point of the compass. Twitchers are praying for westerly gales during autumn – often the fading end of tropical storms and hurricanes from the Americas – which bring vagrant North American songbirds across the Atlantic, to make landfall on islands and headlands on this side of the ocean. The Isles of Scilly used to be the best place to search for these lost waifs. But now the jetstream has shifted further north, birdwatchers have too; heading instead to Shetland and the Western Isles, where increased coverage by birders has discovered a wealth of sought-after rarities. (via The Guardian)
8. A milestone law at 50: This week, we’re celebrating the Clean Water Act’s 50th birthday—and half a century of protecting America’s waters. It is hard to overstate how critical this legislation was and is in reducing the amount of pollution flowing into our rivers, lakes, streams, and wetlands. Here at Audubon, we know birds and communities need access to clean water, which is why this bipartisan legislation is so critical—ensuring clean and abundant water in rivers, lakes, streams, wetlands, and marshes in landscapes where this is paramount to birds’ survival. And that means protecting the Clean Water Act now and into the future. (via Audubon)
9. Exquisite bioengineering: One of the aspects of bird biology that has long interested scientists is their lungs. They are structurally very complex and functionally efficient. Their lungs allow birds to fly. Flying uses a huge amount of energy and some birds fly nonstop over very long distances or at very high altitudes where there is little oxygen. To explore these aspects of the avian lung, researchers use three-dimensional (3D) serial section computer reconstruction. Using this technique showed that the tiny structures (air- and blood capillaries) between which oxygen is exchanged are not the shape they were long thought to be. (via Phys Org)
10. Great for twitchers, not so much for this Blackburnian warbler: A rare American songbird that landed on the Isles of Scilly will never make it back home, an expert has said. Hundreds of birdwatchers have been on Bryher to see the Blackburnian warbler, which was blown off course by strong winds, during its migration south. It is the first time the species has been spotted in England and the fourth time in the UK. Lucy McRobert, of the Isles of Scilly Wildlife Trust, said "it will probably never make it back again". She added: "That instinct to migrate west to east isn't really there", and it would "probably try and head south again quite soon". The young male, which is native to eastern North America, is thought to have been migrating to South America when it got caught in a storm. (via BBC)
11. A peaen to the joy of feeding birds: I’ve never given much thought to why I feed birds. At some point during my many years of doing it, it simply became a routine activity that didn’t require much more than my being aware of what was going on at my feeders, how low my seed supplies were, and whether or not the feeders needed cleaning. But ultimately, I suspect the practice enhances my life as much as it does theirs, if not more so on some levels. (via The Press Herald)
12. Finally, for the backyard birders, upgrading your birdhouse designs: Birdwatching is on the rise, so you might want to learn how to build a birdhouse. Putting up a birdhouse, also called a nest box, is an easy way to foster your newfound birdwatching hobby, not to mention extend your design skills to the outdoors. For your winged friends, the benefits are multifold. “For cavity or nesting species, it provides them an additional place where they can nest each season,” LeBaron says. When temperatures drop, “nest boxes can also be an important place for them to roost.” Of course, the other principal benefit is for humans. “It connects people with the wildlife in their yard and in their region,” he adds. (via Architectural Digest)
Bird Photo of the Week
Photo by Hap Ellis, Savanah Sparrow - Millennium Park, Bosotn, MA.
Bird Videos of the Week
By BBC, The Raven: Stealing, Spying, and Bluffing.
Cornell Live Bird Cam - Panama Feeder.
Cornell Live Bird Cam - Eastern Bluebird.