1. Humans often wreak havoc on nature, and when they do, wildlife suffers. North America has lost 3 billion birds since 1970, or 1 of every 4. In Illinois, some 20 species, including bats, birds, mussels and insects, are listed as endangered. Habitat loss, pollution and human activity all post a threat to the survival of many creatures. But just as humans can harm our fellow living things, we can take actions to help them. Given a chance, nature is amazingly resilient. Even in a crowded, highly developed urban environment like this one, wise policies can create precious room for beleaguered species. (via The Chicago Tribune)
2. A half-century of controversy over two popular bird species may have finally come to an end. In one corner: the Bullock’s oriole, found in the western half of North America. In the other corner: the Baltimore oriole, from the eastern half. Where their ranges meet in the Great Plains, the two mix freely and produce apparently healthy hybrid offspring. The controversy: Are Bullock’s and Baltimore one species or two? According to scientists from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, hybridization is a dead end, and Bullock’s and Baltimore orioles will remain separate species. Findings from the new study were published Aug. 3 in The Auk. (via Cornell Chronicle, The Auk)
By Hap Ellis, Semipalmated Sandpipers.
3. Machias Seal Island is tiny speck of land in the Gulf of Maine. But despite being more than 15 kilometres away from any mainland, the pandemic has found a way to derail more than 25 years of research on Atlantic puffins and a variety of other seabirds. Host to the most important puffin colony south of Newfoundland, Machias Seal Island also happens to be a piece of land that Canada and the U.S. each claims as its own. That complication, coupled with COVID-19, has scientists scrambling to salvage what they can in order to maintain data sets that date back to 1994. (via CBC)
4. Some hot commodities are obvious: gold, oil, corn and more recently, hand sanitizer, are clearly worth a lot. But some valuable products are less evident — and much more off-putting. New research has revealed that the waste produced by seabirds — that's right, the poop of seagulls, pelicans, and penguins — could be worth nearly half a billion dollars annually. That's because seabird feces, also known as guano, can be used as commercial fertilizer and is vital for contributing nutrients to marine ecosystems. (via CNN)
5. “Don’t treat condors as pets,” says Tiana Williams-Claussen, director of the Yurok Tribe Wildlife Department. Scavengers with a nine-and-a-half-foot wingspan, condors are sacred in Yurok cosmology, but it has been more than 100 years since they soared over the tribe’s ancestral territory, in northwestern California. By the early 1980s, there were just 22 California condors left in the wild. Desperate to save the birds from extinction, biologists captured the last of them in 1987 to breed in zoos. Creatures not raised in the wild often need time to learn and practice how to exist without human help. Next spring, the biologists will release six juvenile birds born in captivity with progressive independence to join 337 others now flying free. (via The New York Times)
6. Forty thousand years ago, gigantic land mammals thrived in South America. But because bird bones are more brittle, they are less likely to have survived as fossils. As a result, we know much less about what flew through the skies of the Lujanian Age than what stalked the ground below. Now, researchers have discovered a new species of ancient owl from the Andes — and it was just as formidable as its massive counterparts on land. (via The Washington Post)
By Hap Ellis, Semipalmated Sandpipers.
Semipalmated Sandpipers are beginning to arrive from the sub-Arctic on their way to wintering grounds along the coast of South America. They stop at coastal mudflats along the journey to “refuel”. Manomet Bird Observatory has a short but wonderful video to give you an idea of just how small a bird the Semipalmated Sandpiper is and just how far it travels in a year. For more information on this amazing shorebird look to Cornell’s resource Birds of the World.
7. A lucky duck is nesting on the Metropolitan Museum roof. The chic mallard was found nesting on the Met Museum’s Cantor Rooftop Garden last week. Museum staff have enlisted the help of NYC Parks’s Urban Park Rangers to assist in transporting the to-be mom and her ducklings to the Central Park Pond when they’ve hatched. In the meantime, the Met has launched an open call for name suggestions on Instagram, asking users to submit their “most egg-cellent” ideas in the comments.” Some of the best so far: Leonora Quackington, after Mexican artist Leonora Carrington; La Duckonde, riffing on Leonardo’s “La Giaconda”; and Joseph “Mallard” William Turner, a pun on the British landscape painter’s middle name, Mallord. (via Hyperallergic)
8. France is to outlaw trapping birds using sticks covered in glue after the European commission threatened legal action and fines. The move was welcomed by campaigners who have described the practice as “barbaric” and who urged the French government not to bow to pressure from the powerful hunting lobby. Using glue sticks to catch birds has been outlawed in Europe since the 1979 Bird Directive, except in specific circumstances where the practice is “controlled, selective and in limited quantities”. The French Bird Protection League (LPO) produced evidence from hidden cameras to prove that the practice is not selective and poses a threat to endangered species, which persuaded the European commission to act. (via The Guardian)
Bird Photo of the Week
By Hap Ellis, Red-tailed Hawk harassed by Common Terns.
Bird Video of the Week
By Cornell Lab of Ornithology, “Bird Song Hero: The song learning game for everyone”.
Cornell Live Bird Cam, “Panama Fruit Feeder”.
Cornell Live Bird Cam, “Northern Royal Albatross”.