1. Critically cool technology unlocking migration’s secrets: Have you ever heard of the Motus Wildlife Tracking system? That is how Emily Filiberti found herself interning at a nature preserve in Jamaica a few years ago. Filiberti is now a graduate student at the University of Maine. She spent this summer in Wisconsin tracking golden-winged warblers, a species that is disappearing even faster than most other birds. That’s where she made an astonishing discovery.
Last spring, Filiberti and her crew captured some of the golden-winged warblers in the research area and outfitted them with Nano Tags. These tiny transmitters are part of the Motus Wildlife Tracking System, a technology less than a decade old that takes advantage of miniaturized electronics. The transmitters are so small, they can be attached to butterflies. Suddenly, the receiving station picked up the signal of a different species, a female American redstart that had been tagged in Jamaica. In fact, it had been tagged two months earlier by her former supervisor, in the exact same spot where Filiberti had studied. This bird was not just passing through. It was likely nesting. So, there it was, an individual bird whose exact winter and summer territories were known — 2,000 miles apart. The odds against such a discovery are incalculable. (via Bangor Daily News)
BNI (again) highly recommends Scott Weidensaul’s fabulous book on migration: A World on the Wing.
2. More on MOTUS technology: Although it still feels like beach weather across much of North America, billions of birds have started taking wing for one of nature’s great spectacles: fall migration. Birds fly south from the northern U.S. and Canada to wintering grounds in the southern U.S., Caribbean and Latin America, sometimes covering thousands of miles. Other birds leave temperate Eurasia for Africa, tropical Asia or Australia. Using observation records and data collected through bird banding, 20th-century ornithologists roughly mapped general migration routes and timing for most migratory species. Later, using radar at airports and weather stations, they discovered how weather and other factors affect when birds migrate and how high they fly. (via The Conversation)
3. Another cool app from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology: The sky was a cobalt canvas Tuesday evening along the Menomonee River Parkway in Wauwatosa. But the real action was at treetop level. A sharp-shinned hawk soared into view, turned into the breeze and flapped in place for five seconds, then banked east and swiftly glided out of sight. I've always considered the appearance of nighthawks a sign that the fall bird migration has begun in Wisconsin. But as I hiked Tuesday along the parkway's trails and counted more than 30 species of song birds, waterfowl and raptors, I wondered how many other birds I observed were also visitors passing through. Wednesday morning I received high-tech input from BirdCast, a radar-based project to estimate bird and other airborne animal movements. The answer: probably most. (via Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, BirdCast)
4. Anyone who has hummingbird feeders knows what Emma is talking about: I had a simple question for Emma Greig at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology: Why are hummingbirds such jerks? Except, I didn’t use the word “jerks.” I used a word you might employ if someone cut you off on the Beltway, as in: “Hey, [word that means ‘jerk’ but is ruder]!” Greig chuckled. She knew exactly what I meant: Basically, why can’t hummingbirds play nice with one another? I dream of a whole passel of hummingbirds getting drunk on the sweet syrup, the way multiple birds partake of my seed-filled feeder on the other side of the yard. But noooo. Not for the hummingbird the temporary detente that exists at an African watering hole. If one hummingbird is at the feeder and a second comes along, a fight breaks out. What gives? (via The Washington Post)
5. Welcoming gardens: Lockdown forced a lot of us to stop. And look at our gardens. Tricia Howlett, a freelance educator who lives in Derby, England, was one such onlooker. Previously, she had been aware of birds coming and going in her garden. But until the pandemic, she'd not paid them too much notice. Now, she observed the goldfinches, sparrows, robins and blue tits flitting from branch to branch. In Britain, it is estimated that a majority of households (64%) put out food for birds – and feeders are an enormously popular way to do this. But Howlett decided against them. "It seems to me that it encourages the same kind of species coming in all the time and you're not getting the variety," she explains. Besides, the birds in her garden already seemed to be feeding quite happily on plants and insects. So she resolved to boost those resources instead. (via BBC)
6. Hurricane season upon us: This hurricane season is off to a slow start, but as of early August the U.S. Climate Prediction Center still called for it to be above-normal. Between 6 and 10 hurricanes could barrel across the Atlantic basin by the end of November, the center projected, with 3 to 5 of them rated major. How the season plays out has high stakes not only for people—hurricanes are historically the deadliest and costliest natural disasters—but also for birds. Tropical cyclones, including hurricanes, have a history of shredding habitat, which is especially dangerous for rare non-migratory species that live only on a single island or archipelago. The Bahama Nuthatch, for instance, had its population whittled down by a series of storms and hasn’t been seen since Hurricane Dorian roared through its final stronghold in 2019. (via Audubon)
7. An interesting take on playing bird songs to attract birds: How do you know a restaurant is good? If the parking lot is full of cars, that’s a pretty good indication. If it’s empty, you probably won’t bother stopping. In this case, the restaurant is a newly restored wetland in Michigan and the customers are rails. The birds migrate at night, so if they don’t hear other rail calls in an area, they’re not likely to stop. Researcher Dustin Brewer is broadcasting recorded rail calls to try to bring the secretive birds to prime habitat—to feed and mate. Rails are declining, mostly due to habitat loss. Experts say if rails are influenced by these recordings, it could help increase the bird’s population. (via Science Friday)
8. The Subantarctic rayadito (!!): In a sparse, windswept pasture at the frigid tip of South America lives a tiny bird whose quiet life is shedding light on the importance of studying the world's most remote places. In the Diego Ramirez Islands, 100 kilometers (62 miles) from southern Chile's Cape Horn, scientists have identified the Subantarctic rayadito, a 0.035 pound (16 gram) brown bird with black and yellow bands, and a large beak that is confounding biologists. That's because the Subantarctic rayadito, which resembles a rayadito species that inhabits the forests of southern Patagonia and nests in trunk cavities, was found "living in a place with no trees." (via Reuters)
9. Aluna and Lulo: Two chicks hatched at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo in August are “thriving, confident, and curious,” according to zoo officials. The female birds, Aluna and Lulo, are blue-billed curassows and being cared for “off-exhibit.” Blue-billed curassows, which are native to Colombia, are considered “critically endangered” by the International Union of Conservation of Nature. The zoo said scientists estimate between 1,000 and 2,500 remain in the wild due to habitat loss and fragmentation. While the birds have historically lived throughout northern Colombia, the entire wild population now only occupies a few small areas of tropical lowland forest. (via WTOP News)
10. Fun piece from Australia: Andrew Garrett is a regular cyclist on the streets of Canberra but exercise and fresh air aren't the only thing he encounters on his rides. "When my cycling overlaps with the maggie breeding season, I get swooped. Sometimes a lot!" The Woden Valley local has been capturing amazing aerial shots of the swooping birds by attaching a camera to his bike helmet. Like or loathe our black-and-white friends, Magpie season is upon us. Between July to November each year, magpies build their nests and raise their young in a limited area known as a territory. When there are eggs or young in the nest, the males defend their territory from intruders. Some birds do this by swooping which occurs for around six weeks after which the chicks are mature. (via ABC News)
11. And this from India: Bulbuls are in the news – but for all the wrong reasons right now. Considering they average just around 20 centimetres in length and weigh less than 100 grams, it is indeed quite difficult for grown humans to zoom around the countryside on their backs. Bulbuls are songbirds, or passerines, like mynas and robins. There are around 150 species of bulbuls across the world, distributed across the Old World tropics. They are often a source of frustration for birdwatchers: you raise your binoculars to check out mysterious movements in thickets hoping to pick out a new species to add to your list – but their cheeky crests pop out first, then heads emerge, meeting you with quizzical glares. The red-vented bulbul, another crested species, is also fairly common across the country. (via The Wire)
12. “Chiarr!”: I sit as close to the edge as I dare. Below me, great hulks of former cliff sit below the surface. Rising up among them is the Sugarloaf. Just a few weeks ago it was festooned with thousands of seabirds. Now, only three kittiwake chicks remain unfledged among the guano. But today I’m not here to see the seabirds, I am here to see a crow. Chiarr! It takes just two minutes to hear one. These birds want their presence known. Soon it is not just one bird I hear, but four, no five birds patrolling the clifftops. I have found some choughs. They approach noisily, flying into the steady breeze, scolding as they draw near. Their flight is erratic, travelling in one general direction yet many others at once. Like a gang of bullies, they caw at everything and anything, including me. (via The Guardian)
13. Yikes: A porpoise found stranded on a Swedish beach in June died of bird flu, the first time the virus has been detected in a porpoise, Sweden's National Veterinary Institute said Wednesday. "As far as we know this is the first confirmed case in the world of bird flu in a porpoise," veterinarian Elina Thorsson said in a statement. "It is likely that the porpoise somehow came into contact with infected birds," she said. (via Physical Org)
14. “…embedded in our lives”: As a child, I learned about the world through birds: Antarctica had emperor penguins; the Great Rift Valley meant flamingos, New Guinea was for birds-of-paradise, and so on. As an adult, and now a travel writer, it is still birds that help me navigate the globe. Birds have imbued each place I’ve ever visited – from deepest jungle to city center – with its own avian associations, and just a glimpse of those birds again, or a snatch of their voice, brings back that place in an instant. And it isn’t only me: birds have so deeply embedded themselves in our lives, languages and cultures the world over, from the sacred quetzal of the Aztecs to the mighty bald eagle of the US Air Force. (via The Daily Beast)
Bird Photo of the Week
Photo by Hap Ellis, Osprey, Longboat Key, FL.
Bird Videos of the Week
By The Birdsong Project, “Yo-Yo Ma and Anna Clyne - In the Gale”.
Cornell Live Bird Cam - Albatross by Emmeline.
Cornell Live Bird Cam - Albatross Feeding.