Looking to ruffle some feathers this holiday season? Give a gift subscription to Bird News Items!
1. We’ll start with a continuing question about the “Grail bird” – Is it or isn’t it?: Steven Latta was trudging through the wet bottomlands of Louisiana when he spotted it: A flash of “brilliant white” rising toward the sky. To him, the sight was unmistakable: It was the black-and-white plumage of an ivory-billed woodpecker. “It really left me literally shaking,” said Latta, who directs conservation and field research at the National Aviary based in Pittsburgh. The government, however, says the bird does not exist. Last year the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service moved to declare the ivory-billed woodpecker extinct. Now they are pointing cameras, scaling trees and deploying drones in a race to gather evidence and convince the government — and the public — that the woodpecker lives. (via The Washington Post)
Tim Gallagher’s book here: The Grail Bird: The Rediscovery of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker.
2. A “talented mimic” and its loss of vocal diversity: As the Albert’s lyrebirds’ Australian rainforest habitat shrinks, so does the number of sounds that the bird, a talented mimic, can produce – a degradation of lyrebird “culture” and a hidden loss of vocal diversity, researchers say. The research was described in "Depleted Cultural Richness of an Avian Vocal Mimic in Fragmented Habitat”. Across three years, during the lyrebird’s breeding season from May to July in Australia, the team gathered recordings of Albert’s lyrebirds from seven distinct populations. (via Cornell Chronicle)
3. A “murder” of crows in Maine: I probably don’t need to tell Bangor, ME residents that every evening a large flock of crows gathers along Kenduskeag Stream. A very large flock. Maybe the biggest flock yet. The flock moves around a bit every year. Two years ago, the crows settled around Mount Pleasant Cemetery for much of the winter. Last year, many congregated near the Veterans Remembrance Bridge, on the Brewer side of the Penobscot. This year, the mass murder of crows apparently prefers the neighborhood trees on the lower end of Kenduskeag Avenue. Communal roosting is not new, and crows aren’t the only ones doing it. (via Bangor Daily News)
4. Who has the brightest feathers, you might wonder?: In the clear light of day, the Eurasian woodcock doesn’t stand out. Reddish brown feathers help the bird blend in with forest underbrush to avoid predators. But at dawn and dusk, when males of the species swoop and dart in the pale luminance to attract a mate, they really shine. Now, researchers say their stark white tail feathers are the brightest plumage ever measured on a bird. The backends of the small birds (Scolopax rusticola) sport highly reflective white tips that are only visible from beneath during flight (pictured above) or when males fan their tail feathers on the ground as part of mating displays. (via Science)
5. Once again we are seeing the power of eBird: Birders and other wildlife enthusiasts have a new way to participate in outdoor recreation, thanks to the creation of a Arkansas online gateway to Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology's eBird birdwatching system. Karen Rowe, Arkansas Game and Fish Commission nongame bird program coordinator, said the eBird tool has been available for years, but the new portal gives birders a more customized way to learn more about and participate in birding. "The online database enables you to keep your list of species safe and be able to store different check lists," Rowe said. (via Arkansas Democrat Gazette)
6. Observations from Christmas Bird Counts in Texas: For the 123rd year in a row, the Christmas Bird Count is happening all over the country. Bird enthusiasts and nature lovers head outside, take a census of birds in their area and report what they’ve found to the National Audubon Society, a nonprofit conservation organization. Always planned around the holidays, the count has been called the longest running citizen science project in the world. Recently, though, the project has shown a drop in some bird populations. Last year’s Christmas counts in Texas showed the biggest rate of decline in bird numbers in 14 years, according to a report from the Audubon Society. (via Texas Public Radio)
7. A new Silent Spring?: The planet is experiencing a new “Silent Spring” of wildlife destruction because so many wild birds have died from avian flu, according to a leading scientist, who said the past year has seen the most significant and sudden loss of birds in decades. The Silent Spring narrative refers to the seminal 1962 book by Rachel Carson about how pesticides, particularly DDT, were killing birds. DDT caused egg shells to become so thin that adults crushed them during incubation, leading to nest failure and the deaths of thousands of birds. (via The Guardian)
Rachel Carson’s game changing book “Silent Spring” was published in September, 1962.
8. Depressing news from Hawaii: The sound of the ʻakikiki once filled the forests on Kauaʻi. It’s a small gray honeycreeper endemic to Kauaʻi. That means it’s found nowhere else in the world except the Garden Isle. But since the early 2000s, the population has significantly declined. Officials estimate that there are only about 50 left in the wild and about 40 in captivity. Woodside, a kumu hula, said the cultural and environmental significance of our native birds dates back to the Kumulipo, or Hawaiian creation chant. The ʻakekeʻe is also endemic to Kauaʻi. “These birds then created a relationship with the plants of this place… really creating an incredibly unique environment here in Hawaiʻi,” she said. (via Hawaii Public Radio)
9. Some needed help for Great Basin states from Congress: In the waning weeks of this 117th Congress, both the House and Senate moved to pass the bipartisan Saline Lake Ecosystems in the Great Basin States Program Act, thanks to the sponsors as well as continued attention by Audubon and partners across the region. This Audubon-backed legislation is informed by our scientists’ understanding of what birds need at these unique lakes, many of which are drying to record low levels. Particularly with the ongoing drought, ecosystems and species across the West are stressed and migratory birds are even more dependent on the remaining saline lake and wetland habitats for breeding, resting, and feeding. (via Audubon)
10. A trade-off between cognitive performance and reproductive success?: Researchers have discovered something strange about female southern pied babblers, a small black-and-white bird found in Africa's dry savannah: the more chicks that they have over the years, the less smart they seem to get. As these birds age, they typically produce more offspring each year. Meanwhile, according to a series of controlled tests conducted by researchers from the University of Western Australia, their cognitive ability declines. This findings suggest intelligence and reasoning comes at a cost in energy. (via Science Alert)
11. What it takes (to keep cuckoos - and snakes - out): A new study has found that birds build hanging-nests, particularly those with extended entrance tunnels, to help protect offspring against nest invaders like snakes and parasitic cuckoos. Researchers examined the relationship between nest design and the length of time offspring spend in the nest before fledging across species of weaverbirds and icterids, two bird families renowned for their complex woven nests. (via Phys Org)
12. Interesting insights regarding Wandering Albatrosses during incubation: A new study led by the University of Liverpool has found that wandering albatrosses with older partners spend less time on foraging trips than those with more sprightly partners so that their mate has a shorter wait without food. These enormous birds hold the record for the world's longest wingspan (3 meters on average) and can reach 50 years of age. Found gliding above the southern Indian and Antarctic Oceans, wandering albatrosses generally mate for life, breeding with the same partner every two years. (via Phys Org)
13. The (significant) downside of specialization: Diving birds like penguins, puffins and cormorants may be more prone to extinction than non-diving birds, according to a new study by the Milner Centre for Evolution at the University of Bath. The authors suggest this is because they are highly specialised and therefore less able to adapt to changing environments than other birds. The ability to dive is quite rare in birds, with less than a third of the 727 species of water bird using this way of hunting for food. (via Science Daily)
14. The damn feral cats and the “Silver Bosun”: The cartwheeling tropicbirds of Christmas Island have long been a common sight in the northern Australian skies of the Indian Ocean with their elongated tails streaming in the sea breeze. But a sharp decline in the population of one sub-species — the red-tailed tropicbird, or silver bosun — has brought it to the attention of the threatened species commission. The silver bosun is best known for its immense tail feathers, known as streamers, that can extend for 35 centimeters behind the bird which can reach about one metre in length. (via ABC News)
15. And then there are these damn dam plans: Spooked by a historic drought, local authorities in China have renewed controversial plans to dam the country's biggest freshwater lake. But environmentalists warn damming Poyang Lake, a winter stopover for over half a million birds, would threaten the fragile ecosystem and the endangered birds and other wildlife it supports. China is currently chairing UN biodiversity talks in Montreal, billed as the "last best chance" to save the planet's species and their habitats from irreversible human destruction. The Poyang dam, which is slowly recovering after shrinking to less than a third of its usual size, shows how fraught such efforts are in China. (via Phys Org)
16. And finally, on a lighter note, the avian flu is not stopping this Parisian chef: The French love their foie gras year-round, but right now is when they really indulge. Le Réveillon is a Christmas Eve celebration in France where people come home from Midnight Mass and share a decadent meal of oysters, escargot, roasted fowl, lobster and foie gras. But shortages in the latter means people are getting creative with their pâté this year. Typically made of duck or goose livers, foie gras is being reimagined into vegan and animal-friendly versions lately due to a severe bird flu outbreak. As cases of avian influenza in wild birds continue to surge, the food industry’s stock of the beloved hors d’oeuvre has been cut short. Chefs like Fabien Borge of 42 Degrees, a vegan restaurant in Paris, is selling a “faux gras” to fill the void while also not requiring birds to be force fed to make. (via Robb Report)
Bird Photo of the Week
Photo by Hap Ellis, MacGillivray’s Warbler – McLaughlin Playground, Boston, MA (Rare Bird!).
Bird Videos of the Week
By Audubon, “Audubon’s Christmas Bird Count”.
Cornell Live Bird Cam: Red-tailed Squirrel Surprise.
Cornell Live Bird Cam: Bustling Feeder.