2. BBC takes a look at Red-tailed Hawks in NYC's Central Park: Pigeons, check. Blackbirds, check. Blue tits, check. Hawks? Surely not! You’d be forgiven for thinking that large birds of prey would avoid one of the busiest spots in New York, but red-tailed hawks (Buteo jamaicensis) have made themselves right at home in the huge park frequented by locals and tourists alike. Central Park includes 843 acres of parkland and is the most visited urban park in the US, with around 42 million people visiting annually. The park is also home to many species of flora and fauna, with certain areas – such as The Ramble – attracting hundreds of species of birds. The red-tailed hawk is a common bird of prey in America, but it wasn’t until the 1990s that it began to be recorded in Central Park. (via Discover Wildlife)

Photos From Friends: Cindy Rand, Bald Eagle - Chisel Peak, Lake Windermere, British Columbia.

3. "An almost unimaginable abundance has been lost." - 'The Book of Birds" review in the WSJ: Imagine a world without birds. Just now, a jet-black, golden-eyed currawong flew low past my study window, changing the view. Yet, as Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris tell us in “The Book of Birds: A Field Guide to Wonder and Loss,” “a great thinning of the skies is under way.” During the past 50 years in North America alone, the bird population has declined by some three billion. “Dawns and springs are quieter; the air emptier. An ancient avian orchestra is falling silent. An almost unimaginable abundance has been lost.” You’ve never read a bird book like this one, written and illustrated in a spirit of determined awareness, augmenting facts with spirited play. (via The Wall Street Journal)

4. From BirdLife International, "shared skies, shared responsibility": Several declining bird species have been hunted traditionally for centuries, but habitat loss, wetland degradation, pollution, climate change, and changing agricultural practices are the major drivers. While hunting is often not the primary cause of decline, in depleted populations, even small additional mortality can prevent recovery. Reducing avoidable harvest is an essential short-term measure while habitat restoration takes effect. Recovery is also a legal obligation: under Article 7 of the EU Birds Directive, hunting of listed species must be sustainable and may not jeopardise conservation efforts across their range. At the centre of this effort is the European Commission’s Task Force on the Recovery of Birds (TFRB), which brings together EU countries, scientists, and stakeholders to coordinate conservation measures for declining migratory game bird species. (via Birdlife)

5. Albania not for sale!!: If the real estate dreams of a billionaire political family come true, an island in one of Europe’s poorest countries will become a luxury hotel complex, sweeping up stretches of the wildlife-rich nature reserve that sits across the water. No public consultation has taken place, but there are signs the idea is on the way to becoming reality. Albania has been rocked by nearly two weeks of fierce protests after fences and heavy machinery came to a sensitive wetland and preparatory work began on the tourism vision of Ivanka Trump and her husband, Jared Kushner. Marshes, dunes, lagoons and salt pans stretch across the dynamic delta of the free-flowing Vjosa River, which was declared Europe’s first wild river national park in 2023. It sits on a major migratory corridor, hosting about 12% of the country’s wintering waterbirds, and is home to Eurasian otters, loggerhead sea turtles, bottlenose dolphins and Albanian water frogs. Flamingos add bright shocks of pink to striking blue shallows. (via The Guardian)

6. A paean to "Tammie Norries" (aka, puffins): All my life I have been obsessed by black and white birds. Magpies are my tormentors, my morning omens of whether my day will be worthwhile or miserable. Penguins are my salvation. When I’m a little melancholy, I pop along to London Zoo to read them poetry. In my experience, they enjoy The Wasteland. There is another black and white bird that I have long found appealing: the puffin. My attempts to spot them, however, have been in vain. On a school geography field trip to the far north, I managed to see Iceland’s ugliest dog but no puffins. There seemed to be a family curse. My uncle was once booked a birthday trip to Puffin Island, off Anglesey, only to discover they’d all flown away. But then I blagged a trip to Shetland. (via The Spectator)

Photos From Friends: Chris Ellis, Smooth-billed Ani, French Guiana.

7. The dinosaur equivalent to a "person of interest": For years, a mysterious predator haunted the fossil beds of Changma Basin in northwest China. The site is known for a stunning aviary of fossilized birds, including some of the earliest known specimens from the group that gave rise to modern birds. But these specimens often turned up as broken fragments, including pellets that looked suspiciously like those coughed up by modern predatory birds, such as hawks and owls. Something, it seemed, was hunting these early birds. Now, paleontologists believe they may have identified the culprit: a new genus and species of carnivorous dinosaur. (via Science Alert)

8. Trade-offs for this tiny petrel- crosswinds v food: You might think birds skimming over the ocean wouldn’t seek wind unless it was pushing them in the right direction, but NASA-funded researchers have learned that storm petrels find stiff crosswinds worth the slowdown, in return for the clues and cues the gusts carry. In a paper published by the Royal Society’s Biology Letters May 13, researchers from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and the Italian Institute for Environmental Protection and Research (ISPRA) found that Mediterranean storm petrels actively sought out crosswinds, which carried odors the birds used to navigate toward prey. The birds were effectively trading the extra energy needed to fly in a crosswind for the information it blows toward them. (via NASA)

* More on the European Storm-Petrel: European Storm-Petrel - Hydrobates pelagicus (via Birds of the World)

9. Twitchers delight!: It is a tropical bird typically encountered between west Africa and India, but last week a western reef heron arrived in north Wales in what is believed to be the first ever sighting in the UK. The heron was first spotted in Foryd Bay at the weekend before flying to nearby Caernarfon harbour where it fed among the boats. While the sighting has excited birdwatchers nationwide, experts said it also demonstrated how changing climate conditions have altered the bird’s range. “The fact that they are getting here in the first place, and then surviving, is likely to be because of increasingly mild winters,” said Nick Moran, training manager at the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO). (via The Guardian)

* More on the Western Reef-Heron from BOW: Western Reef-Heron - Egretta gularis (via Birds of the World)

10. "Magnifique...": It is peak tourist season at Westminster Abbey, and crowds bustle around its 13th-century gothic cloisters. They point at notable names, buried everywhere, including Charles Dickens, Sir Isaac Newton and more than 30 kings and queens. But this Thursday in the middle of May, the visitors only have eyes for one celebrity: Minerva. “Magnifique,” says a French woman with her son, while others gasp, point and snap away on their phones. Minerva is an 11-year-old gyrfalcon and she has no idea what ruckus she has caused. Her eyes are covered by a cerise pink hood topped with a theatrical plume to keep her calm and focused on her job. “That’s where the word ‘hoodwink’ comes from,” says her handler Wayne Davis, 63, from Avian Environmental. “Shakespeare used it and he made it a popular way of saying to deceive someone.” (via The Times)

Photos From Friends: Chris Ellis, Scarlet Ibis, French Guiana.

11. Birds in flocks - Defying Newton's third law: Birds in flocks, bacteria and cells: In many collective systems, individual elements respond to only part of their surroundings, seemingly defying Newton’s third law of motion—action equals reaction. These exceptions are known as nonreciprocal interactions. A Dresden physics team working with Roderich Moessner, a founding member of the Würzburg–Dresden Cluster of Excellence ctd.qmat, has now developed a theory that makes it possible to describe these interactions efficiently and simulate them far more precisely. (via Phys Org)

12. Birds and wind turbines (again!): Wind turbines generate climate-friendly electricity, but they can pose a danger to migratory birds. A study led by the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research (WSL) published in Nature Sustainability shows that weather radar data could be used to reduce the risk of collisions with only a minimal impact on electricity production: by strategically shutting down turbines when particularly large numbers of birds are in flight. How many birds collide with wind turbines? In the continental United States, the annual figure is estimated to be between 140,000 and 330,000. However, there are no estimates for Europe, particularly for migratory birds during their nighttime migrations. Some measures are already in place, such as shutting down turbines during periods of heavy migration—on a single autumn night, an estimated 188 million birds may be on the move simultaneously in Europe. (via Phys Org)

13. Good observations on the Cornell Lab's remarkable Merlin app: For 22 years, I’ve had the honor of kicking off the Downeast Spring Birding Festival with a talk on how to identify birds by sound. During this year’s Q&A, somebody asked: “How many people in the audience use Merlin?” Almost every hand shot up. Merlin is the bird identification app from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Download it onto a smartphone, and you’ve got a free bird expert in your pocket. It can identify many birds by sight and sound. It can also misidentify them. To be fair, Merlin doesn’t actually identify birds. It suggests potential identifications. I played with Merlin this week, trying to figure out why some of its guesses miss the mark. Since the weather was ideal for recording bird songs, I ventured outdoors at daybreak for five straight mornings. (via Bangor Daily News)

* Note too that the Lab's eBird team encourages users to not include a bird on an eBird checklist if you didn't actually hear it or see it for yourself.

By Hap Ellis, Common Tern - Biddeford Pool, ME.

14. No surprise - the backyard birding business is booming: Since the Covid-19 pandemic, interest in bird-watching has ballooned and drawn a younger demographic in the United States, boosting the sales of feeding hardware. Finches, warblers and other birds perch on feeders, birdbaths and bird houses in the yards of 59 million American households, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Nonetheless, Americans spend $4 billion a year on bird food alone. Demand for feeders and water suppliers could increase to $2.9 billion in 2035 from $2 billion in 2025, according to an estimate by Future Market Insights, a market research firm. (via The New York Times)

15. Pranks and pink flamingos: The use of pink plastic flamingos to signify graduations stems from a popular high school and college tradition known as “flamingo flocking” or “yard flocking.” Originally born from a legendary 1979 university prank, this whimsical practice has evolved into a staple fundraising campaign and celebratory milestone marker across the United States. As a victory stunt by the Pail and Shovel Party, which had won the student-government election, leaders Jim Mallon ’79 and vice president Leon Varjian x’83 purchased 1,008 plastic flamingos and planted them all on the hill. Why 1,008? The birds were sold by the dozen, and Varjian wanted to be able to say they had planted more than 1,000. “The smallest number divisible by 12 that’s over 1,000 is 1,008,” the late Varjian said in an interview. The “prank” continues today through Fill the Hill, an annual fundraising event that helps the UW address critical needs. The tradition took on a more poignant meaning during the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2020, schools like South Portland High School in Maine used hundreds of pink flamingos to physically fill empty football fields. Each bird represented a missing student at the canceled commencement ceremony, permanently cementing the flamingo as an emotional stand-in for a graduate. (via UW Madison & WMTW News)

16. Finally, Let's go! The Yakutat Tern Festival "re-terns": Some Southeast Alaskans may have only stopped in Yakutat on the “milk run” flight to Anchorage. But just beyond the tarmac lies a birders paradise. From black legged kittiwake’s nesting on the jagged edges of seaside cliffs, to a posse of surf scoters, riding the ocean waves in a v-formation as they forage for mussels off of the rocks below. But there is one bird in particular that has motivated a pack of over a dozen visitors across the country to wander through beach dunes early on a Saturday morning, armed with binoculars and zoom camera lenses: the Aleutian tern. Nate Catterson is the volunteer guide leading the trip. He began birding over a decade ago to learn more about his surrounding environment. Since then, he has worked to help track the migration of Aleutian terns, traveling as far as Indonesia. Yakutat is key to that research, since the village is home to the southernmost breeding colony of Aleutian terns. And they are not the only terns that make a pit stop here, with Catterson pointing out an Arctic tern landing a few feet ahead of the group. (via KCAW News)

* More on the beautiful Aleutian Tern: Aleutian Tern - Onychoprion aleuticus (via Birds of the World)

Go Birding!

Bird Videos of the Week

Video by Rick Andrews Wildlife, “Cantankerous Canada Goose”.

Cornell Live Bird Cam - Time for a nibble! An adorable Gray-headed Chachalaca chick stops by the Panama Fruit Feeder Cam.

Cornell Live Bird Cam - First feeding for the chick on the Hellgate Osprey Cam! Iris feeds her adorable chick.

2. A bird worthy of the royal treatment: Asian crested ibises have been revered and reviled at different times throughout Japanese history, but the endangered birds with long, curved bills; red faces and legs; and pink tinged wings are getting the royal treatment once again. On Sunday, the Japanese crown prince and princess attended a ceremony commemorating the release of eight crested ibises into the wild on Honshu, the country’s main island. It had been more than a half-century since the last such wild creature flew freely there, and the royals’ presence at the event signaled just how far these creatures have come in recent decades. Once widespread in Japan and beyond, crested ibises went from being fairly commonplace in the country to being on the verge of extinction. They are now seen as a symbol of successful conservation efforts and of international diplomacy. (via The New York Times)

By Hap Ellis, Piping Plover on nest - Wells Reserve at Laudholm, Wells, ME.

3. 80% of Arizona wildlife depend on 2% of its landscape: The deserts of the American Southwest are a hotspot for a diversity of birds found nowhere else in the United States. Gambel’s Quail, Gila Woodpecker, and many more rely on habitats that most think of as hot, harsh, and dry. But, perhaps surprisingly, many waterbirds also call the arid region home for all or part of the year along their migratory journeys. In fact, on an average day during migration,some 250,000 shorebirds can be found in the wetlands of the Colorado River Delta—twice previous estimates. While only 2% of Arizona’s landscape is covered by rivers and wetlands, up to 80% of Arizona wildlife species are dependent on these areas — known as riparian habitats — for breeding, migration, shelter, and seasonal foraging throughout their lifetime. (via Audubon)

4. Black-crowned Night Herons - "the quintessential New Yorker" - are slowly disappearing in New York: Black-crowned night herons, with their muted colors and distinctive white tendrils, are quintessential New Yorkers. “They are fashionable, they stay out late and they love exploring new places,” said Dustin Partridge, the director of conservation and science atNYC Bird Alliance. The birds, about two feet tall, have been spotted in Harlem green spaces, along the East River in Queens and on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, where they are rumored to be aficionados of the local rats. But the popular, stout birds could vanish from New York City in 11 years, going the way of the once-ubiquitous passenger pigeon, according to a new study by NYC Bird Alliance, a nonprofit formerly known as NYC Audubon, and several other groups, including the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and Rutgers University. (via The New York Times)

5. Handcuffs and banknotes in a nest? Must be Bowerbirds: Bowerbirds in an Australian city use a range of human items—from glass and plastic to banknotes and even a pair of handcuffs—to impress females, shows new research in Royal Society Open Science. Male bowerbirds create an intricate tunnel of twigs called a bower, then gather colorful items to show to any females that visit. The new study, by the University of Exeter, compared items collected by bowerbirds in Townsville City and a rural area, both in Queensland, Australia. City birds gathered larger, more colorful decorations—mostly from human sources—than their more understated rural rivals. (via Phys Org)

* Same story from Discover Wildlife: Male great bowerbirds create intricate tear-shaped tunnels of twigs called bowers, which can be up to a metre long and half a metre tall. At one end, males place a collection of locally sourced, colourful items, which they then display to visiting females. Research in Royal Society Open Science shows that males living in urban areas use a wide range of items which they scavenge from humans. “Glass, plastic and wire were common choices, but we also found items including a pair of handcuffs, medicine jars at bowers near a hospital, and fluorescent mouth guards from a site near an Australian Rules football ground,” says Caitlin Evans from the University of Exeter, who studied the birds. (via Discover Wildlife)

6. They're back on the bridge - and not just any bridge: Nest boxes for the peregrines have been installed on both the American and Canadian sides of the bridge since 2010, placed at locations that demonstrated past nesting activity. In 2025, the resident pair of peregrine falcons hatched three chicks in the box on the U.S. side of the bridge. Over the years, the site has been a great success, hatching 47 falcon chicks since International Bridge Administration or IBA staff started counting the birds, Michigan DOT noted in a statement. Several years ago, the IBA added a video camera trained on the nest box, dubbed the “FalCam.” The popular live video stream – available at www.saultbridge.com/falcam-canadian-nest-box/ – offers bird watchers a close-up look at the seasonal activities of the falcons, which are also known as “raptors.” The best time to view the birds is when they’re nesting in the spring. (via Ashto Journal)

By Hap Ellis, Cedar Waxwings - Wells Reserve at Laudholm, Wells, ME.

7. Concerning news in Seattle: Bad news for Seattle birdwatchers: The Emerald City’s bird communities are in trouble. Average bird counts across Seattle dropped by 21% from 2005 to 2023, according to a new study from Birds Connect Seattle. The nonprofit’s “Neighborhood Bird Project” volunteers have been studying birds for decades at eight Seattle sites, including Golden Gardens Park, Seward Park, and the Washington Park Arboretum. Titled “Fewer and Fewer,” the study also finds that the city’s bird species diversity — or the total number of species present across those eight sites — fell 18% within the same time period. In addition, over half of the city’s bird species are in decline. (via KUOW News)

8. Tips on finding more birds: Birding during migration means ample op­portunities to rack up lifers; add to county, state, and patch lists; score the earliest or latest arrivals of species; and clock in record high counts. There are endless methods for finding birds that come with years of experience and experimentation. I’ve used a few favorite techniques to help me find 185 species, including rarities like Painted Bunting and Connecticut Warbler, in Brooklyn Bridge Park—a narrow, 1.3-mile stretch of urban waterfront in New York City that attracts nearly 5 million human visitors each year. By varying the way you scan for birds and strategize for birding, you’ll score lifers and rarities and gain a front-row seat to the spectacle of migration. Add in a little tech support from eBird and the Merlin Bird ID app, and you’ll take your birding enjoyment to a new level. (via All About Birds)

By Hap Ellis, Magnolia Warbler – Timber Point Trail, Biddeford, ME.

9. A walk in the Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve with Stanford students: On a foggy May morning at Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve (’Ootchamin ‘Ooyakma), the early birds got the birds. The early birds in this case were Stanford students in ecologist Rodolfo Dirzo’s ornithology course. These students traipsed through the muddy forests at dawn in the hopes of catching birds for an ongoing monitoring project with the San Francisco Bay Bird Observatory (SFBBO). The course teaches students about the ecological pressures that shaped the evolution and anatomy of today’s bird species, and by the end of it they are able to identify around 70 different birds in California. (via Stanford Report)

10. When in Iowa: the University of Iowa touts its Museum of Natural History's specimen collection: Trove of birds in the University of Iowa Museum of Natural History can no longer take flight—but it still holds the secrets to past worlds in motion. With more than 31,000 avians, eggs, and nests, the museum’s ornithological collection features nearly all native Iowa species and seasonal visitors. This includes about 1,000 birds on display in the Hageboeck Hall of Birds as well as those in the century-old Laysan Island Cyclorama, a 360-degree view of a bird sanctuary on an outpost of the Hawaiian atoll. The museum’s specimens, which staff also catalogue in an international database, benefit students, scholars, and artists alike. Visitors can use the collection to explore everything from Earth’s shifting seasons and vanishing habitats to evolving avian forms. (via Iowa Magazine)

11. For your drivetime pleasure, courtesy of the NYT: Once thought of as a quirky pursuit for retirees, bird-watching has exploded in popularity in recent years. Surveys show that nearly 1 in 3 Americans now partake, with a notable spike among younger generations thanks in part to tech innovations like the Merlin Bird ID app, which takes the guesswork out of birdsong identification. These seven podcasts can help beginners to build a birding habit or regulars enhance an existing one, whether offering expert advice on equipment and logistics, digestible facts about the more than 11,000 species of bird worldwide, or stories about the psychological benefits of tuning into the winged world. (via The New York Times)

By Hap Ellis, Willet - Wells Reserve at Laudholm, Wells, ME.

12. Fifty-five chicks in two years - one prodigious pair of Orange-fronted Parakeets: Two critically endangered parakeets have been hailed as “super breeders” in New Zealand after the pair produced 55 chicks in two years — increasing the population by more than 10 percent. The native kākāriki karaka, or orange-fronted parakeet, was declared extinct in 1919 and 1965, only to be rediscovered both times in the depths of mountainous valley areas. It is the country’s rarest parakeet. Now, there are only about 450 left in the wild and in captivity. Conservationists are doing all they can to prevent the bird from going extinct a third time by creating predator-free sanctuaries and running breeding programs. (via The New York Times)

13. Helpful hint for backyard birders: If you want to keep backyard birds happy this summer, you might have considered investing in a bird bath – but dust baths are the often-overlooked detail that is just as important. While birds drink and bathe from fresh water sources like bird baths, they also clean themselves off in patches of dirt and dust. This is what helps them to keep their feathers healthy by removing excess oils, as well as mites and lice. So, before you remove every inch of dry or dirty ground in your yard, spare a thought for backyard birds and try creating a dust bath instead. This week, we reveal exactly how to do it, and why it’s so important – especially in the months ahead. (via Homes & Gardens)

14. Finally:

Bird Videos of the Week

Video by BBC News, “Catching the People Illegally Killing Britain’s Birds of Prey”.

Cornell Live Bird Cam - The American Kestrel chicks will soon be fledglings.

Cornell Live Bird Cam - Meet Clark the Osprey!

2. A "physical basis for what looks like a 'gut feeling' in bird navigation": Scientists in Germany have found a surprising solution to one of biology’s big mysteries — how birds and other animals sense Earth’s magnetic field to help them navigate accurately for thousands of miles. The team from Germany’s University of Bonn and Max Planck Institute of Animal Behaviour discovered that pigeons have iron-rich immune cells in their liver, which detect geomagnetism. (via Financial Times)

By Hap Ellis, Broad-winged Hawk - Kennebunkport, ME.

3. No more feathers for fashion - The Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918 revisited: Millions of birds were hunted each year for fashion, meat markets, sport, and trade, pushing some species toward collapse and silencing once-abundant flocks across North America. Out of this crisis came one of the most important conservation laws in United States history: the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918 (MBTA). Passed more than a century ago, the law was one of the first federal environmental laws of its kind. It helped transform the way Americans thought about wildlife and remains a cornerstone of bird conservation today. In 1918, the MBTA began as a treaty between the United States and Great Britain, which represented Canada at the time. These countries were later joined by Mexico, Japan, and Russia. The MBTA’s purpose was simple but groundbreaking: to protect migratory birds that crossed borders and could not be safeguarded by individual states alone. (via CMNH)

4. Californians get ready for a Big Weekend: Conservation groups, bird organizations, and community scientists across California are preparing for the inaugural California Bird Atlas Big Weekend, a four-day effort taking place June 4–7, to document breeding birds as part of the first-ever statewide Breeding Bird Atlas (BBA). Thousands of Californians will spread out across the state’s coastline, deserts, forests, wetlands, valleys, and cities to document as many breeding bird species in as many parts of the state as possible. Dozens of community events are being organized by local bird and conservation groups. California is one of only six states that has never completed a statewide Breeding Bird Atlas, despite supporting more breeding bird species than any other place in the country. (via Audubon)

5. Once nearing extinction, news from the UK has this warbler slowly improving: A rare bird that was previously on the brink of extinction in the UK is making a comeback, surveys have shown. The Dartford warbler suffered from a population crash in the 1960s, leaving only a few pairs in Dorset. The latest national surveys have revealed a 44% increase in the species in the past five years, with 264 pairs counted in 2025. The RSPB said a record 97 pairs were at RSPB Arne, near Wareham, where the charity has been carrying out habitat restoration. The Heathland Birds Survey, carried out by the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) and the RSPB, aimed to survey nightjars, woodlarks and Dartford warblers throughout the UK and Channel Islands. (via BBC)

6. This is why you should buy USFW's annual Duck Stamp: New government funds will help conserve, restore and enhance migratory bird habitat across the country. The Migratory Bird Conservation Commission, a group tasked with considering and approving areas of land or water recommended for purchase or rental to conserve wetlands and related habitat for migratory birds, approved the funds from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS). Overall, the commission approved $44.79 million for migratory bird wetland projects and $22.6 million for land purchases on three national wildlife refuges across three states to conserve 5,254 acres. (via Wildlife)

By Hap Ellis, Prairie Warbler - Kennebunk Plains, Kennebunk, ME.

7. Cities as stopover sites (hello, Central Park!): Songbirds generally make their migratory flights at night, and during spring migration tens of millions of birds may be streaming north above us as we sleep. But when the sun rises, where do these tired birds choose to stop, rest, and refuel?You may picture a nature preserve or grassy field, but a study published earlier this year in the journal Nature Cities shows that a large percentage of these birds are making their “stopovers” in cities, illustrating the importance of urban conservation efforts. Ornithologist Miguel Jimenez was a Ph.D. candidate at Colorado State University when he led the study as part of his dissertation. (via The Revelator)

8. Actually, you're going to have to wait a bit, sir: A truck sold by a Kansas dealership cannot be taken from the lot by its new owner because a family of robins is living atop one of the vehicle’s tires. The relatively novel situation has gained widespread attention after the dealership in the Kansas community of Olathe wrote about it on its Facebook page – and it perhaps taught many that active robin nests are protected by federal law from the US. A few weeks earlier, employees at the Olathe Ford Lincoln dealership discovered a robin building a nest atop a tire of the truck in question. The bird laid four stunningly blue eggs over the next few days, the dealership wrote in a 14 May Facebook post. The eggs hatched more recently, and the robin is caring for the baby birds, the dealership said. (via The Guardian)

9. From Hawaii, the always touchy subject of cats: Native species in Hawaiʻi evolved without predatory mammals. Cats are known to directly kill individuals of most of our native species: palila high on Mauna Kea, ʻōpeʻapeʻa, or Hawaiian hoary bat, in our forests, manu o Kū, or white tern, in Honolulu’s trees, ʻalae ʻula, or Hawaiian moorhen, in our marshes, and mōlī, or Laysan albatross, on our bluffs and beaches. Beyond predation, cats spread Toxoplasma gondii, a parasite transmitted through their poop, that can sicken people, kill nēnē and — through rainwater runoff — kill spinner dolphins and Hawaiian monk seals.Stating facts does not demonize cats. Many of us share our homes with cats we love, indoors, where they thrive and native wildlife is protected. (via Civil Beat)

By Hap Ellis, Ruby-throated Hummingbird - Timber Point Trail, Biddeford, ME.

10. "Lights Out" in Utah: When you think of migrating animals, you might picture mule deer, or wildebeest — maybe even salmon. But some of the most extraordinary migration routes are carried out by birds, ranging in size from just a few ounces to a few pounds, and it’s happening here in Utah. “Birds live at a geographic scale that is so different than what we’re used to,” said Adam Brewerton, the avian conservation program coordinator with the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources. “Birds use landscape features and visual cues like stars, moon location,” Brewerton explained. “They’re really keyed into where light is and where light isn’t.” One way to reduce light pollution at home is to turn off unnecessary lights and consider installing shielded fixtures for outdoor lighting. Brewerton said there are uniquely designed programs to aid Utahns in this very task. “Lights Out programs, Lights Out Salt Lake City, Tracy Aviary has a lot of information and resources there for people.” (via Utah Public Radio)

11. The raptors the passengers on MV Hondius were looking for at the landfill: Birders visit landfills because they function almost like artificial feeding grounds, drawing gulls, rodents, scavengers, and eventually larger birds of prey into the same area. According to Audubon Magazine, some birds have become so dependent on landfills that their migration patterns have started to shift. In Europe, for example, White Storks increasingly remain near dumps year-round instead of migrating long distances. For birders traveling through remote places like Tierra del Fuego, that concentration of wildlife can make a landfill one of the most reliable places to spot several species in a single stop. The same landfill ecosystem that attracts birds alongside large rodent populations has also fueled debate over whether the site played any role in the MV Hondius outbreak. Local officials and birding guides have pushed back on suggestions that the landfill was definitively linked to the infections and suggest it may have occurred elsewhere. (via Discover Magazine)

By Hap Ellis, Willet - Granite Point Road Salt Pannes - Biddeford, ME.

12. A $100 billion market?: At Barnside Creamery in Oak Harbor, Ohio, Tonia Tice says she owes a lot of the seasonal ice cream stand’s success to birdwatching. And yet, it’s a hobby she doesn’t really know much about.“As their birding week festivities have come to be more known and have grown, so has our business right alongside of it,” she said. Her shop is on a rural stretch of road, about 25 miles east of Toledo. It’s under a migratory flyway, about a mile away from the Lake Erie shore, so lots of birds stop in the area before attempting to cross the lake. That’s why Northwest Ohio is home to the country’s largest annual birdwatching festival.It was chilly and cloudy at the start of this year’s festival. That’s not traditional ice cream weather, but it’s Tice’s biggest week of the season. And the local businesses that supply her ingredients know it.“When I call for my order,” she said, “They’re like, ‘Yep, it’s birding week, because Tonia just stocked up.’” (via Marketplace)

13. What the crow knows - the WSJ reviews Louis Lefebvre's "A Bird's IQ": In 1921, a series of petty crimes swept through Southampton, England. Morning after morning, residents would retrieve the bottles of milk on their stoops only to find that a thief had skimmed off the cream. The culprit: a half-ounce bird called the blue tit. It had somehow learned to peel off the bottles’ lids and gulp the cream down. Milkmen fought back in various ways, putting stones atop the lids and draping cloths over them. Nothing worked: The wily birds thwarted every defense. The behavior then spread to blue tits in other cities. Like avian Fagins, the birds were indoctrinating others to a life of crime. Ever since then, scientists have been fascinated by innovations in birds, and especially how those innovations reflect avian intelligence. (via The Wall Street Journal)

14. Finally, birding advice for non-birders: I would not call myself a birder, though I certainly love to watch the lively fluttering that happens on my front porch in the mornings. I start by pouring a couple soup cans worth of birdseed onto platforms I’ve nailed across the corner of my porch railing. Then glorying in a new day — though sometimes still a little grumpy about the state of our nation — I sit in my favorite chair (big enough to accommodate Jackson) and sip decaf while watching the birds through my glass sliders. (via Chinook Observer)

Bird Videos of the Week

Video by BBTV, “The Kookaburra: The Legendary Snake Hunter”.

Cornell Live Bird Cam - A big meal for the littlest Red-tailed Hawk nestling!

Cornell Live Bird Cam - The Northern Royal Albatross chick got his weekly weigh-in with Department of Conservation (DOC).

* Pale Male was memorialized 10 years ago in Marie Winn's "Red-Tails in Love" - a really fun read for a beach near you this summer.

2. The Power of Merlin - powering an "avian tourism" industry in Columbia: Samantha Giraldo, 21, was at her family’s home in Colombia last Christmas when an email from a birding enthusiast in India, half a world away, arrived. Merlin and eBird, the world’s most widely used birding apps, had highlighted the Giraldo family’s small hotel — named after the guácharo, or oilbird, often found on the property — as a birding hot spot. He was preparing, he wrote, to make the long journey to see it. That was when Ms. Giraldo felt something fundamental had shifted. “So many people tell us that’s how they found us,” she said, referring to the apps. “Not just avid birders but backpackers, retirees, people who are new to this passion.” (via The New York Times)

By Hap Ellis, Cooper's Hawk - Arnold Arboretum, Boston, MA

3. Heartwarming story about Brian Lendrum, blind since infancy, birding by sound: For the past decade, each spring has been a little more quiet to Brian Lendrum. The 76-year-old birder likes to stand outside his home on the shores of Lake Laberge, north of Whitehorse, and record the calls and songs around his property. Then he listens back — and hears birds he missed while standing there. Lendrum, who is blind, spent decades learning to locate and identify birds by sound. But now, he said, as he ages his hearing is “just very, very gradually going down every year.” He first began to take notice of the avian soundtrack when he moved from Whitehorse to his more rural Lake Laberge home about 40 years ago. “I have been blind since infancy,” he said. “So naturally I pay attention to my ears all the time.” (via CBC)

4. Wildlife resistance can help! (Note: this may be the only time this year you will see the phrase "...the share of K. pneumoniae isolates resistant to third-generation cephalosporins..." in print): Red foxes and birds regularly cross between human-dominated and natural ecosystems. For this reason, they may be heralds of spreading antibiotic resistance into ecosystems unexposed to antibiotic pressures, a study done in Italy showed. Results indicated that the share of K. pneumoniae isolates resistant to third-generation cephalosporins – a key group of hospital antibiotics – was about five times higher in wildlife than in isolates from human hospital patients. This shows that studying wildlife resistance can be an effective tool to monitor antimicrobial resistance in natural environments, the researchers said, and called for improved wastewater management, a reduction of antibiotic pollution of water, and a restriction of clinically important antibiotics to human medicine. (via Frontiers)

5. Red-tails mating on Fifth Avenue is a feel good story, but wild bird sales in NYC? Not so much: The City Council will reintroduce a bill banning the sale of birds at pet stores across New York after a fledgling attempt last year didn’t get off the ground. Councilmember Harvey Epstein, a Democrat from Manhattan, will introduce the bill that would prohibit the sale of some birds in pet shops. These include non-poultry birds like parrots, cockatiels, finches, parakeets, and macaws. “Far too many birds sold in New York City pet stores come from out-of-state bird mills: massive commercial breeding facilities where thousands of birds are confined to cages and treated like inventory instead of living beings,” Epstein said in a statement. (via The City)

6. With all of the threats to existing bird populations, not sure spending money on "de-extinction" makes much sense: Colossal Biosciences—the same company that claimed to “de-extinct” the dire wolf and touted a “woolly mouse” bearing mammoth genes—announced the development of an “artificial egg” that it says is a step toward “resurrecting” extinct birds, including New Zealand’s South Island giant moa and Mauritius’s famous dodo. Many scientists disagree with the entire notion of “de-extinction.” “Nothing will ever bring back a mammoth; nothing will ever bring back a dodo,” says Victoria Herridge, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Sheffield in England. “Extinction really is forever.” But Colossal’s “artificial egg” technology is intriguing. In past work in mammals, scientists have proposed impregnating closely related, still existent species with lab-created embryos carrying the genetic material of an extinct species. (via Scientific American)

By Hap Ellis, Eastern Kingbird - Arnold Arboretum, Boston, MA.

7. From China, "Birdwatching cured my mental burnout": On Xiaohongshu, “birdwatching” has racked up over 820 million views. , 700 million plays. In the past year alone, birdwatching posts on Xiaohongshu (also known as RedNote) reached 1.2 times the total of the previous decade combined. But the most telling number is the , based on an official report from Xiaohongshu: two years ago, content creators in this space were around 35. Now, most are around 25 years old. The turn toward birdwatching is not an isolated hobby shift. But it is worth being precise about what makes this generation’s version different from what came before. (via Jing Daily)

8. Keeping track: Birds, lights, windows and migration in Chicago: Every morning during the spring migration season of March to June, Prince, director of the Chicago Bird Collision Monitors, leads hundreds of volunteers who scour downtown Chicago searching for migratory birds that have collided with windows. Their busiest period is right now: Mid-May is the peak time for migratory birds to fly north through Chicago. And while millions of birds fly through Chicago this spring, conservationists, architects and city leaders are grappling with how best to protect hundreds of species, as the city serves as both a critical stopover site and a dangerous obstacle along that migration route. (via The Chicago Tribune)

9. A look at the Confluence Lab at the University of Idaho through the eyes of Lexi Arritt: Lexi Arritt likes birds. Migratory birds, songbirds, local all-year-long birds. She owns binoculars for bird watching, hikes birding trails and wears bird merch for fun. The University of Idaho English student who earned a master’s degree in Spring 2026 wasn’t always a bird buff. But her six-year long enthusiasm to recognize the songs, silhouettes and learn the names of feathered creatures also prompted her to look for new ways to talk about birds. Arritt is in the process of building a community birding web platform called Migratory Methods that will include narratives about the avian world, stories and poems, ornithological research, fly zone maps, bird identification, and a birder’s forum. (via University of Idaho)

10. And then looking into the eyes of a bird through the eyes of Sci-Fi novelist: On a cool April morning at the height of Washington, DC’s always brief spring, the science fiction novelist Ray Nayler and I found ourselves in a staring contest with the world’s heaviest flying bird. We were standing at the fenceline of the Kori bustard exhibit at Washington’s National Zoo when the largest of the already enormous omnivores broke away from its flock at the rear of the enclosure and began stalking toward us. Gray and black and white with a parrying dagger for a beak, the Kori bustard resembled a heron that had taken up powerlifting. (via Vox)

By Hap Ellis - Tree Swallow in a tree (and not a nesting box) - Biddeford, ME

11. New gear news: Spotting scopes are traditionally a wildlife and bird watching essential, offering a stable and highly magnified view of distant subjects — much greater than monoculars can — but little has changed in these devices for decades. That was until now. Meet the Go Birding M One Smart AI spotting scope — it looks just like a regular spotting scope, only it’s equipped with AI hardware and a host of handy tools that could change wildlife and bird watching. Following in the footsteps of the premium Swarovski Optik AX Visio binoculars, which we have tried and tested, the Go Birding AI spotting scope has ‘industry-leading AI recognition’ and can identify up to 10,000 species of birds. (via Tech Radar)

12. Costa Rica has long since taken notice of the power of avian tourism: Costa Rica will host the North American Bird Fair Costa Rica 2026 from June 4 to 7 in Sarapiquí, bringing together birdwatchers, nature photographers, tourism operators, educators, naturalists and conservation groups for a four-day event focused on birding, conservation and nature-based tourism. The event will take place in Puerto Viejo de Sarapiquí, Heredia, one of the country’s best-known birding areas and a long-running destination for visitors interested in rainforest wildlife. The fair’s program is expected to include field activities, talks, educational spaces, photography experiences, exhibitions, meetings with experts and activities tied to conservation and nature tourism. (via Tico Times)

13. From the American Ornithological Society, the James G. Cooper Early Professional Award winners are: Each year, the American Ornithological Society (AOS) recognizes early-career researchers with awards celebrating excellence in ornithology. This year’s early-career research awardees represent remarkable contributions to the scientific study and conservation of birds. The 2026 recipients will accept their awards and deliver plenary talks at the 2026 AOS annual meeting (AOS 2026) this August in Amherst, Massachusetts, USA. (via EurekaAlert)

By Hap Ellis - Masked Booby - ~60 miles Off Cape Canaveral, FL.

14. Deep science: protein markers improve the accuracy and quality of bird DNA sequences: A new computational program, MicroFinder, enables faster and more accurate assembly of bird genomes. Improved genome assemblies will help researchers better understand bird biology, evolution, and help inform conservation efforts. Detailed in an article published in GigaScience, MicroFinder uses protein markers to improve the accuracy and quality of bird DNA sequences, particularly in their tiny and difficult microchromosomes—regions that normally make genome curation incredibly challenging and time-consuming. MicroFinder was created by researchers at the Wellcome Sanger Institute and has been made freely available to scientists worldwide on GitHub. (via Phys Org)

15. Book review: Birds are in trouble. In the United States alone, one-third of bird species are rated as of high or moderate conservation concern. North American forests have lost more than one billion birds in the past half-century. A 2019 study found that grassland bird populations have declined by 53%, and 90% of those losses come from just 12 of the most common avian families, including sparrows, blackbirds and finches (K. V. Rosenberg et al.Science366, 120–124; 2019). Naturalist Scott Weidensaul, the author of more than 30 books about birds and nature, calls this trend “a gut punch”. Weidensaul wrote about the wonders of bird migration and the challenges facing migrating birds at a time of rapidly changing climate and massive habitat loss in his 2021 book A World on the Wing. After a colleague suggested that he might write another book about what is going right for birds, Weidensaul responded with his latest work, The Return of the Oystercatcher. (via Nature)

16. Let's finish with a wonderful story about Iris, the Queen of Hellgate Canyon. Iris is a female Osprey in Montana and her story is worth your time over a second cup of coffee: An online sensation, Iris the osprey has captured hearts as viewers remain glued to her nest camera. Here’s why you should be watching. You probably don’t often think about how long wild birds live. While some species, such as bald eagles, have lengthy lifespans, others are with us only for a short while. With that in mind, birds that survive past their species’ typical lifespan can generate interest — especially if they happen to be the subject of a beloved, long-running nesting cam. Iris, the oldest known nesting osprey, is one such bird. Here’s why she’s remarkable. (via Birds and Blooms)

Bird Videos of the Week

Video by 60 Minutes, “The Pigeon Mafia”.

Cornell Live Bird Cam - European Starling fledgling’s sudden appearance in the nest.

Cornell Live Bird Cam - Shhh... someone's sleeping.

2. The bird retina - "...a complete paradox": The retina is one of the body’s most energetically expensive tissues. Built from complex networks of sometimes more than 100 different types of neurons, retinal tissue consumes two to three times more energy than the same mass of typical brain tissue. That’s why most vertebrate retinas, including our own, are furrowed with dense, branching networks of blood vessels: to deliver oxygen and other ingredients for producing energy. But there’s a significant exception to this rule. Birds have retinas that mostly lack blood vessels. This may seem especially strange given birds’ exceptional vision. The bird retina is “one of the most metabolically active tissues in the animal kingdom, yet it worked with no apparent blood perfusion,” said , an evolutionary physiologist at Aarhus University. “It was a complete paradox.” For centuries this has puzzled scientists, who figured that the bird retina must obtain oxygen through a unique, undiscovered process. (via Quanta Magazine)

By Hap Ellis, Black-capped Petrel - North Atlantic off Charleston SC.

3. A look at fires in the Arctic: Right now hundreds of millions of birds are making their annual trek to settle down in their northern breeding grounds. As they fly hundreds to even thousands of miles, they stop occasionally to refuel—delighting birders as they go. Horton’s lab and the BirdCast collaboration use radar data to study bird migration patterns and generate a number of bird tracking maps that give birders a glimpse into how many birds are on the move—and offer Radar systems send out radio waves and then record any energy that is reflected back to their receivers. Information about how long it takes for the signal to return to the receiver is used to calculate how far away something is from the radar tower. Just like radar beams reflect off of the water droplets in brewing storms, they reflect off migrating birds. (via New Scientist)

4. Hantavirus latest - Don't blame Ushuaia say these birders: The hantavirus outbreak on a cruise that departed from Argentina last month has cast an unwelcome spotlight on Tierra del Fuego, a region well known for its biodiversity and bird-watching, authorities and guides say. Now, bird-watching may be at the epicenter of the outbreak on board the MV Hondius, in which three people have died and five others were sickened. The World Health Organization has said the first person with a confirmed case may have been exposed to rodents — which can carry hantavirus — while on a birding trip. The farthest stretches of the South American continent are a strong draw for bird-watchers. (via NBC News)

5. The honeycreepers who are quilty of "nest material kleptoparasitism?": When Mauna Loa erupted in 1885, it enveloped native forests on the island of Hawaii in a layer of basaltic lava flow. The magma eventually cooled, sparing a mosaic of scattered forests known as kīpukas that today are home to a unique set of forest songbirds. Hawaiian honeycreepers are adapted to the most unforgiving of ecosystems, surviving at high elevations where mosquitoes can’t go and equipped with curved bills perfectly suited to forage on the native flowers. Now, researchers have pinpointed yet another of their evolutionary tricks: opportunistic thievery. Researchers found that three species of scarlet and golden honeycreepers on Hawaii are adept at “nest material kleptoparasitism,” the practice of stealing material from the nests of others instead of finding their own. After using GPS tracking devices to monitor 216 honeycreeper nests, researchers found 39 instances of theft. (via The New York Times)

By Hap Ellis, Parasitic Jaeger - North Atlantic off North Carolina.

6. Everyone knows Merlin; not everyone knows BirdNet: Scientists have discovered that they can eavesdrop on the secret lives of birds using networks of inexpensive microphones, revealing complex behaviors across vast wilderness areas, according to research published in the journal Ecology. Previously, microphone technology that records sounds from wildlife had mostly been used to determine if a species was present in an area. Recordings could tell researchers what birds were present, but not what the birds were doing. Now, scientists from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology show that recordings of bird songs and calls can also reveal details about bird behavior that are otherwise time-consuming and difficult for scientists to observe directly in the wild. (via Phys Org)

7. Twitchers in the Cotswolds: It’s early. 6:00 a.m. Wellies are pulled on and I’m out the door to meet ornithologist, naturalist, and wildlife guide, Dr. Ed Drewitt. I’m geared up for the dawn chorus for a birding tour, organized by Active England, where we walk from Upper Slaugther to Lower Slaugther, following the River Eye in England’s Cotswolds, an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. Drewitt’s hobby has always been birds. “My grandma would feed the starlings and sparrows, and we would go to the duck pond to feed the ducks,” Drewitt says. “I also had teachers that really encouraged my interests and gave me the confidence to think about it. A lot of bird songs I learned through my teenage years.” (via Forbes)

8. A look at the effects of climate change on chicks: Experiences in the first days and weeks of life can have a profound impact on humans — and birds. A new study led by Sage Madden, a graduate student in evolution and ecology at the University of California, Davis, shows how weather conditions and family dynamics affect the growth of barn swallow (Hirundo rustica erythrogaster) chicks. By tracking over 100 barn swallow chicks during their first two weeks of life, Madden and Professor Gail Patricelli showed that the chicks’ growth was stunted by cold spells if experienced within five days of hatching, if they were the smallest sibling, and if their parents brought less food back to the nest. Hot weather also stunted the chicks’ growth, during both early and late development, and parents were unable to buffer their chicks against the heat by feeding them more. (via U.C. Davis)

By Hap Ellis, Masked Booby - North Atlantic off Florida.

9. And the fish fight back: Beneath the tropical trees of southern Mexico, enormous shoals of sulphur mollies blanket the water surface of toxic sulphur springs, where survival depends on collective defence against relentless attacks from predatory birds. The tiny fish survive attacks of birds through creating spectacular collective waves. But new research now shows that their avian predators are adapting too, changing where they attack to avoid triggering the fish’s powerful group defence. The fish, in turn, appear to fight back with a surprising form of collective “memory.” (via Eureka Alert)

10. When it comes to bird collisions with wind turbine blades, hopefully this helps: Wind turbines are a net positive for a sustainable society, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have an environmental impact. Apart from their material requirements, those giant, spinning blades can be lethal to unsuspecting winged animals like birds and bats. Although some reports dramatically overplay wind farms’ danger to flying species, there is no denying they can unintentionally kill anywhere from two-to-six birds and four-to-seven bats per megawatt every year. That may not seem like many fatalities, but every animal counts for an endangered species. To lower these risks, engineers are devising new ways to make wind turbines more visible and avoidable. One potential solution may involve taking a cue from some of nature’s most dangerous creatures. More bats and birds will steer clear of wind turbines when their blades are painted with colors similar to animals like venomous coral snakes and poison dart frogs. (via Popular Science)

11. Bird banding news from the Adirondacks: Writing from the Crown Point Bird Banding Station where we are in operation for the 51st year. At home, the night before I left, a black bear hit all my feeders and because I didn’t fill them that night and the birds had pretty much cleaned them out during the day before, it didn’t get much other than the fun of taking them all down. I had left my garage door down as I had the truck backed part way in the garage in the rain to load up but I went out just before going to bed, moved the truck and put down the door or it would have had a ball in the garage and that would not have been pretty. So, before I left to come here, I cleaned up the mess and am no longer feeding birds until I get my electric fence back in operation. (via Adirondack Almanac)

12. What it takes -to compete with 87 teams in NJ for the Big Day title: It’s just after midnight in north New Jersey when a white SUV pulls up next to a deserted park, and three teenage boys leap out into the dark. They sprint across a field, vault a fence and peer through binoculars — up toward giant nests atop a pole — all in the hopes of catching a momentary flash of a sleeping parrot’s tail. By the light of street lamps, they strain to get a look through the nests’ dark holes. Then, after 10 minutes of waiting, 16-year-old Otys Train calls out: “I’ve I got it, I got it, I got it, I got it, I got it, I got the monk parakeet!” He and his friends, 17-year-old Jack Trojan and 16-year-old Zade Pacetti, have repeatedly come to this park late at night to try to find this bird. And tonight, the work has paid off. They’ve found their first bird of the 43rd annual World Series of Birding. (via National Public Radio)

By Hap Ellis, Osprey - Inland Waterway, North Carolina

13. Birder I.D. tips from a favorite local New England columnist: About this time every year, I offer counsel on how to make bird identification easier. Usually, the first step is to simplify the range of choices in front of you. The standard police lineup features six people from which the eyewitness is supposed to pick out the suspect. Imagine if that lineup consisted of 100 people. To reduce the overwhelming range of identification possibilities, birds can be divided mentally into smaller, more manageable groups. You can first divide them into two piles: birds you know and birds you don’t know. Then they can be divided by size, shape, color and field marks. Birds can be divided by habitat and behavior. It doesn’t take long before the bird lineup is suitably reduced to six or fewer. Simplification is the key. That’s my usual advice. But not today. Today, I recommend getting overwhelmed. (via Bangor Daily News)

14. BirdCast explained (again): Flock shape, speed and structure are key in deciphering whether radar readouts are birds, bats, insects or weather Right now hundreds of millions of birds are making their annual trek to settle down in their northern breeding grounds. As they fly hundreds to even thousands of miles, they stop occasionally to refuel—delighting birders as they go. The majority of their travelling happens at night, however; that’s one reason experts say to turn off unneeded lights during migration season. So how are bird enthusiasts able to track these migrations? It turns out the same radar that helps track storms has a big part to play. Horton’s lab and the BirdCast collaboration use radar data to study bird migration patterns and generate a number of bird tracking maps that give birders a glimpse into how many birds are on the move—and offer birding forecasts for the next few days. (via Scientific American)

15. Finlly, let's conclude with a short paean to one our most beautiful warblers: Warbler excitement peaks in Northern Ohio during the first couple weeks of May. In fact, the Biggest Week in American Birding — the celebrated warbler migration event in Northwest Ohio that brings thousands of visitors from around the world and millions of dollars to the area — is still continuing for a couple more days. Although warblers come in a variety of brilliant colors, the color most commonly associated with them is yellow, and much of their attraction is that they are migrating through the area. But there are exceptions. The cerulean warbler is not yellow, and it is not migrating through. It is a striking soft blue warbler that breeds here in Ohio and across parts of the Midwest. Its migration, however, is still remarkable, extending to non-breeding areas in South America. Each year, it migrates through the southern United States and Mexico, making the dangerous journey across the Gulf of Mexico. (via The Chronicle)

Bird Videos of the Week

Video by 60 Minutes, “In Comobia, Anderson Cooper discovers the surprising thrills of birding”.

Cornell Live Bird Cam - Fresh fish is served at the Hellgate Osprey.

Cornell Live Bird Cam - A Pileated Woodpecker enjoys some suet alongside European Starlings.

2. Also from 60 Minutes in Columbia - a birding guide's effort to turn Marxist rebel fighters into forest (and birding) guides: Diego Calderón Franco, a researcher and birding guide, was once kidnapped and held hostage by Marxist rebels in Colombia. Years later, he decided to introduce his former captors to bird-watching, thinking it might provide some of them with new careers as guides. The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, a far-left group known by its Spanish acronym FARC, captured Calderón Franco in 2004 and held him hostage for 88 days. The group was embroiled in a decades-long conflict with the Colombian government. After reaching a peace agreement in 2016, nearly 10,000 fighters gave up their guns and started a search for work. Calderón Franco thought the former fighters might make good forest guides. So he introduced some of them to birding. (via CBS News)

By Hap Ellis, Yellow Warbler - Arnold Arboretum, Boston, MA

3. Avid birder becomes critical doctor on the MV Hondius: When Stephen Kornfeld set sail aboard the MV Hondius in early April, his grand plan for the cruise was to add as many new species as possible to his birding list. A medical oncologist based in Bend, Oregon, Kornfeld is also an avid birder—second on eBird’s renowned rankings of birders worldwide—and the ship would visit several remote islands, where he might spot some of the globe’s most obscure avians. But last week, Kornfeld’s trip took an unexpected twist: He stepped in to care for three people thought to be sick with hantavirus, a severe respiratory pathogen that can kill roughly half of the people it infects. Kornfeld was, and still is, “a passenger on this boat,” he told me. “But I became the doctor on this boat.” (via The Atlantic)

4. "Social learning" in Australia: By watching their peers, dolphins learn to capture fish in empty conch shells, then ferry the shells up to the water’s surface in order to eat. Octopuses can master experimental tasks by watching their tankmates in the laboratory. Crows follow the cues of others in their flock to attack specific humans who have harassed fellow crows in the past. Scientists call it “social learning,” and it essentially means monkey see, monkey do, an adage that turns out to apply to many animals beyond just primates. Now, a study of Australia’s sulfur-crested cockatoos shows that the birds employ social learning to understand whether unfamiliar foods are safe to eat. (via The New York Times)

5. From Mongabay, a look at the challenges in the African-Eurasian flyway: Each year in May, World Migratory Bird Day draws attention to the billions of birds that migrate long distances with the changing of the seasons, a living braid of ecosystems separated by thousands — even tens of thousands — of kilometers. According to Kariuki Ndang’ang’a, BirdLife International Africa’s regional director, about 2 billion birds fly along the African-Eurasian flyway every year: the populations of between 40 and 50 percent of these migratory bird species are in decline. Ndang’ang’a told Mongabay added that the birds that travel furthest are at greatest risk. Some species, like Abdim’s stork (Ciconia abdimii), migrate relatively short distances within the continent, but palearctic migrants — those coming from distant landscapes in Europe or Asia — are particularly vulnerable, experiencing over a 30% decline in the past 30 years. (via Mongabay)

6. The enduring power of the Nightingale's song: Two weekends ago, I had the honor of attending a rare experience I will never forget. Folk musician Sam Lee guides people into the forest in Sussex, in the southeast of England after nightfall to listen to the song of the Nightingale. This is a tiny bird with an enormous heart. Part ecological music emergence, part enchantment, the evening is impossible to categorize. Which is why it’s wonderful. I’d heard of these sojourns to Sing with the Nightingales while I lived in England and always wanted to attend, but the timing didn’t work. However, in between events for my book “Heartwood” in Oxford and London, I had a free weekend. (via Aspen Times)

By Hap Ellis, Baltimore Oriole - Arnold Arboretum, Boston, MA.

7. Hawk watch in Iowa: It’s a cloudless and chilly February morning when Iowa Raptor Project director Dave Conrads pulls up to the Levitt Center for University Advancement, home of Iowa Magazine. Photographer Seth Diehl (07BA), art director Nick Beecher (03BA), and I are heading out with Conrads’ team for a leg of their winter raptor survey—an annual count of the area’s birds of prey. Before we pile into Conrads’ SUV, though, something catches our eye. Each winter, the Iowa Raptor Project—part of the University of Iowa College of Education’s UI WILD department—conducts surveys across Johnson County to study population trends and habitat needs for bald eagles, rough-legged hawks, northern harriers, and other birds of prey. (via For Iowa Magazine)

8. Nice piece on the Cornell Lab of Ornithology: Yesterday, May 9, was birding’s biggest day. It is called Global Big Day, an annual 24-hour event in which thousands of people around the world help crowdsource sightings of birds for the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, considered one of the leading avian research institutions in the world. Thousands more tune in to the lab’s FeederWatch camera and use the lab’s downloadable Merlin app, which can recognize bird sounds and images, both free to users. People young and old upload sightings, primarily using eBird, a massive database, with both a website and free downloadable app, with checklists birders can send in all day. (via WBUR News)

9. "Birds and seafarers" sailing together: Sailors and seabirds share the same weather. They ride the same winds, are hit by the same storms, feel the same calms. And, now, we all – birds and seafarers – are having to navigate the changing conditions brought on by climate change. I came to the sea early and to sailing late. Swimming, kayaking and fishing on the coast. Charts and compass, VHF and pilots gave me information. But birds gave me inspiration. I’ve always been a birder. I’m not an ornithologist, nor a twitcher; I’d rather see a common bird doing something interesting than gawp at some poor American catbird or African collared dove blown off course and expiring in a bush on the British coast. What brings joy is sharing this planet and especially the seas with birds. On my kayak trip around Ireland birds had become friends, subtly telling me things if I cared to listen. (via Yachting Monthly)

10. Open mic at night in Chicago: Back in 2019, a research study from the Cornell Bird Lab of Ornithology famously, or infamously, ranked Chicago as the “most dangerous city for migrating birds.” Benjamin Van Doren contributed to that scientific paper and, in a full-circle moment, is now collaborating on a project to make the Windy City safer for the estimated 150 million to 200 million birds that wing their way over the city on their journeys north and south in the spring and fall. The first step in protecting migrating birds, Van Doren said, is understanding how they use Chicago’s airspace. And that’s what brought him to the rooftop of Illinois Center on a blustery day in late April. Now an assistant professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Van Doren was joined by his grad assistant Shu-Yueh “Winnie” Liao and J’orge Garcia, executive director of Windy City Bird Lab, as the three installed an acoustic monitor more than 350 feet above East Wacker Drive. The device is the latest in a network that’s grown to 45 or 50 such monitors spread across the city (and a few suburbs). Garcia’s even installed one 111 stories up on the roof of the Willis Tower. (via WTTW News)

By Hap Ellis, Orchard Oriole - Arnold Arboretum, Boston, MA.

11. More on the tension between wind turbines and birds: It’s a delicate balance. Renewables need to be deployed fast to prevent ecological collapse, but they should also avoid wildlife-sensitive areas. The best and cheapest way to ensure that wind turbines don’t harm birds is to place them in the right location, away from vulnerable species and major migration routes, where impacts will be minor or easier to mitigate. Sensitivity maps, a tool that helps identify areas to be avoided, are gaining popularity across the industry and governments. And BirdLife is leading the way in developing these spatial tools. (via BirdLife)

12. Bird-friendly architecture: Every spring and fall, millions of migratory birds cross the American continent along major natural corridors known as flyways. These flyways connect ecosystems, economies, and cultures from the Arctic to Patagonia, stretching like invisible highways over mountains, rivers, and coastlines and guiding the movement of entire flocks across the continent. Although some species undertake extraordinary nonstop flights, for many others migration occurs in stages, with successive stops to rest and refuel; in fact, the cumulative time spent at these stopover sites can exceed the total time in flight. But when these stops occur in urbanized landscapes, birds must face additional obstacles and threats. In cities located within these corridors, the risk of mortality increases dramatically. (via Audubon)

13. The "feathered serpent": There’s an Aztec king’s headdress — the last of its kind — in the collection of Vienna’s Weltmuseum Wien, made with nearly 400 iridescent emerald tail feathers from the quetzal bird, which have been stitched into a half-moon fan. So rare are the feathers and so vivid — despite being more than 500 years old — that the artefact, reputedly from Mexico, is reportedly worth $50m (£38m). Yet nothing could possibly trump the real bird in front of me. “They used to call it the feathered serpent,” says my guide, Carlos Serrano Navarro, as we watch the bird flit between moss-cloaked branches heavy with bromeliads in the high-altitude cloud forest of San Gerardo de Dota. Its nickname makes sense: the quetzal is such a prized species for birdwatchers because of its long tail, which can reach up to a metre and give the impression of a writhing snake in flight. It’s little wonder the Aztecs and Mayans thought the quetzal so precious. (via National Geographic)

* More on the Resplendent Quetzal from Birds of the World: Species - Trogonidae - Trogons (via Birds of the World)

Photos From Friends: By Christopher Ellis, Kentucky Warbler - Powhatan State Park, Powhatan, VA.

14. From Minnesota, cultural teachings along the Mississippi River: Bird chirps resonate throughout the area of Wakaŋ Tipi, a site sacred to Dakota people. It’s located along the Mississippi River in east St. Paul. Lower Brule Sioux Tribe citizen Michael Tasunka Opi Kurtz is with Twin Cities-based Urban Bird Collective, an organization that supports birdwatchers of all different skill levels in their own neighborhoods. He stops to point out a brown-headed cowbird — a small bird with glossy black feathers on its body and brown feathers covering its head. The bird makes a high-pitched chirping noise. (via MPR News)

15. Finally, a look at Birdcast.org tools from Popular Science: Tonight, there will be more birds in the sky than there are people in the United States. According to Cornell Lab’s BirdCast, an estimated 373 million winged migrators will continue their journey north during the early evening hours of May 4th. Most of the activity will be visible in the South and along the East Coast, but wildlife experts are politely reminding everyone hoping to catch a glimpse of the traveling birds to make sure you’re not blinding them from below. Birds migrate for two primary reasons: food and nests. In the Northern Hemisphere, this typically means traveling north during warmer months when insects and budding plant life are more abundant. Colder seasons prompt a return south to avoid freezing temperatures, although many birds do just fine in snowy conditions. (via Popular Science)

* FYI...Birdcast estimated 352 million birds were in the air over the U.S. last night.

Go Birding!

Bird Videos of the Week

Cornell Live Bird Cam - An emerald White-vented Plumeleteer made a quick stop at the Panama Hummingbird Feeder Cam.

Cornell Live Bird Cam - Iris laid her second egg on the Hellgate Osprey Cam.

2. And the answer is...: Nature has evolved an extensive range of visual codes to allow individuals of one species to pass important messages to those of another. Brightly coloured skin? Potentially poisonous—do not eat. Thorny leaves? Not worth the effort—stay away. The message “Do not collide with this chair lift” has, however, proven harder to communicate. (via Economist)

By Hap Ellis, Scissor-tailed Flycatcher - Ellis County, TX.

3. A MIT engineering professor takes a (very) close look at birds: Feathers give birds their dazzling colors. They repel water and trap heat, keeping them warm and dry. They can even stifle sound, allowing species such as owls to hunt in virtual silence. All of these functions come from the remarkable structure of feathers, explored in two chapters in “Birds Up Close,” by MIT materials engineer and lifelong birder Lorna J. Gibson. The book takes a microscopic look at birds’ feathers, bones, bills, eggs, and the mechanics of flight to explain their extraordinary abilities — how they can hover in place, silently swoop down on prey, and fly hundreds of miles without tiring. Gibson spent four decades studying the mechanical behavior of materials — examining their underlying structure to determine what makes them hard or soft, supple or brittle. She specialized in cellular materials, such as engineered honeycombs and foams, as well as natural ones such as wood and bamboo. (via Massachusetts Institute of Technology)

4. Last week it was the bird "trade" in Southeast Asia; this week - sadly - we visit exotic bird smuggling on U.S.-Mexican border: Two San Diego men have been sentenced for smuggling vulnerable birds into the United States, with one heading to prison and the other getting hit with thousands in fines. Ricardo Alonzo was sentenced to three months in prison for smuggling 17 birds — two red-lored Amazon parrots, five yellow-crowned Amazon parrots and 10 Burrowing parakeets — into the U.S. without quarantining them to prevent the spread of disease, officials with the federal Department of Justice said in a news release. In a second case, a federal judge ordered San Ysidro resident Carlos Abundez to pay $74,330 for smuggling 14 sedated keel-billed toucans in the dashboard of his Volkswagen Passat, the government said. Some of the birds suffered injuries, including broken tails and a broken leg. (via Los Angeles Times)

5. Hmm...not sure what to make of this: European Great Tits and 36 other bird species on the continent are more afraid of women than they are of men, according to a recent study — and researchers have no idea why. In the study, men could get about a meter closer to birds than women could before the animals flew away, according to the results. This pattern remained regardless of what the men and women were wearing, what their height was or how they tried to approach the creatures. That suggests birds may be able to suss out the sex of a human, though the researchers aren’t sure how. “I fully believe our results, that urban birds react differently based on the sex of the person approaching them, but I can’t explain them right now,” said Daniel Blumstein, a co-author of the study and a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, in a statement. (via Scientific American)

6. The threat of intensive heatwaves : Humans are not the only species negatively affected by increasingly hot and humid conditions. Intense heatwaves sometimes kill large numbers of wild animals. Eastern Australia’s giant fruit bats, known as flying-foxes, provide possibly the most dramatic illustration. In late 2018, two days of extreme heat in the far north of Queensland wiped out one third of Australia’s population of spectacled flying-foxes. The species is now red-listed as endangered. Bat biologists have identified high humidity as a major risk factor for these mass mortality events. The worst-affected species was the blue waxbill, a charming little finch with a powder-blue face and belly that spends most of its time foraging for grass seeds in small flocks. Blue waxbills made up nearly half the carcasses found by field rangers when they searched part of the reserve after the heat had passed. (via The Conversation)

By Hap Ellis, Mississippi Kite - Ellis County, TX.

7. From Paris, rising above the urban racket: When Rachel Carson wrote the environmental classic “Silent Spring” in 1962, she warned that unchecked human impacts might create a silent future. Forty years later, biologists uncovered a striking effect of noise pollution on songbirds. They found that low-pitched traffic noise in European cities forced birds to sing at higher pitches. Songbirds in a noisy park beneath the Eiffel Tower sang at a pitch of 400 Hz higher than those in quiet forests outside Paris. My new research, published in the scientific journal Ornithological Applications with colleague Hans Slabbekoorn from the University of Leiden, shows that Paris is a success story in the battle to reduce noise pollution. Yet even as Paris has grown quieter, birds have not returned to their natural song frequencies. Our research shows that great tits in Paris continue to sing at higher pitches than birds in wilderness areas outside the city. (via Phys Org)

8. Good news from Florida: While Florida communities continue to recover from hurricanes, coastal habitat conditions have improved for sea and shorebirds. Why? The storm surge and winds tore out vegetation, leaving large expanses of bare sand, perfect for nesting. A lack of hurricanes this year meant birds nesting in the newly exposed areas could successfully fledge without contending with excessive waves, wind, or water, showcasing how resilient they can be without human disturbance and development. (via Audubon Florida)

9. Would that we all had Eastern Phoebes nesting on our house: Dagnabbit. The eastern phoebes have taken over my garage again. They’re building a nest directly above the garage door. For the next month or more, I face the awful dilemma of disturbing them every time I do a chore, or not using my garage at all. I miss the days when they nested on my porch instead. If you have a porch, deck, garage, shed or anything with an eave, I assume phoebes have completed work on their seasonal home and moved in by now. Maybe the worst thing about phoebes is the way they cop an attitude. During nest-building, they chirp impatiently, waiting for me to clear out while they set up housekeeping. They don’t want me to know where the nest is, even though they’re building their home on my home in plain sight. Do they think I am stupid? Yes. (via Bangor Daily News)

By Hap Ellis, White-tailed Kite - Ellis County, TX.

10. Declines in Seattle's parks: Seattle’s green spacesare losing their soundtrack, according to a new analysis showing bird counts dropping by 21% in our parks over 19 years. The Birds Connect Seattle report mirrors broader bird losses across North America. Bird counts track trends — not exact populations — and can be thought of as “uncalibrated thermometers” showing direction, not precise totals, lead researcher Joshua Morris told Axios. Standardized bird counts from 2005 to 2023 showed widespread losses across six of eight Seattle-area parks, per the analysis. Total bird counts dropped 21%.. 58% of species are declining, and species diversity is down 18%. (via Axios Seattle)

11. From Audubon, Motus stations in the news: In January, the Audubon Center for Birds of Prey became part of a global network for tracking bird migration with the installation of a Motus station on our property. As spring migration approached, we awaited the first “ping” of a bird passing within the range of our station, and on April 3, it happened: an American Kestrel — the smallest falcon species in North America — became the first radio-tagged bird to pass within the station’s range. Motus, a program of Birds Canada in partnership with Audubon, is an international collaborative research network that uses radio telemetry to track the movement and behavior of birds and other small animals, like bats and insects. There are around three dozen Motus stations across Florida, including one at Audubon’s Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary in Naples, recording any time a tagged animal passes within seven miles. (via Audubon)

12. An interesting extract from Steve Brussatte's new book: "The Story of Birds": Exactly how did birds evolve from dinosaurs? It’s a mystery that has been with us for more than 150 years, and palaeontologists are still hunting for pieces of the puzzle today. Among them is the University of Edinburgh’s Professor Steve Brusatte, whose latest book, The Story of Birds, tells the whole fascinating story. We caught up with him recently to find out more. (via The Conversation)

By Hap Ellis, Upland Sandpiper - Ellis County, TX

13. And keeping with the new book theme this week, and just in case you missed it last week, another review of Scott Weidensaul's new book "The Return of the Oystercatcher": The world’s birds are in a critical state, under pressure from climate change, habitat loss, and more. A 2019 study estimated that North America had lost one-third of its birds since 1970 — a decline of nearly 3 billion. Another study published in early 2026 found accelerating rates of decline for more than 60 North American bird species, potentially driven by factors including intensive agriculture. But as author Scott Weidensaul points out, some groups of birds are either thriving or rebounding. They include waterbirds like ducks, swans, and geese, as well as raptors — birds of prey with sharp talons and curved beaks, like hawks, falcons, and eagles. Weidensaul’s new book, “The Return of the Oystercatcher: Saving Birds to Save the Planet,” surveys efforts since the 1970s to save birds in many locales worldwide and spotlights successes. He delves into methods and technologies, but the stories are highly readable and never lapse into jargon. And Weidensaul’s passion for birds comes through on every page. (via Undark)

14. Finally, Spring migration is in full swing. Last night birds moving up and across the country exceeded 150,000,000 according to www.birdcast.org. Utilize Birdcast's migration tools to see what is happening tonight in your area (U.S. only).

Go Birding!

Bird Videos of the Week

Video by Los Angeles Times, “Topa Topa: California condor at the Los Angeles Zoo”. (Jan. 13, 2009)

Video by CBS Evening News, “Inside the effort to bring back California condors”. (Dec. 28, 2025)

Cornell Live Bird Cam - The owlets from the 2026 Barred Owl Cam need names, and your vote counts!

Cornell Live Bird Cam - Two hatchlings are on the horizon for the Red-tailed Hawks!

2. "Properly" explaining female bird song in this study: When we hear the beautiful call of a bird from a high bough, we’re told it’s likely to be a male – singing for territory, or belting out tunes to woo a female. But as the annual dawn chorus reaches a crescendo this spring, a new guidebook is urging us to think again – and turn our ears to the hidden world of female birdsong. The songs, sounds and sights of female birds have historically been overlooked in field guides and sound archives. In 2016, just 0.01% of the bird sounds in the global Xeno-Canto sound library were labelled female. Another sound archive was just 0.03% female, according to a 2018 study. But the new book –The Sound Approach to Birding 2 – aims to correct this under-representation and properly explain female birdsong. Female birds sing for territorial displays, to ward off other females and to attract extra males, according to Lucy McRobert, a writer and researcher who studied the issue for the guidebook. (via The Guardian)

By Hap Ellis, Reddish Egret - Fort De Soto, Tampa Bay, FL.

3. The Starlink for birds (and monkeys) in the Amazon is the birds and monkeys: You might go for a walk in the forest to disconnect from work and calm your nerves after a busy week. The chirping and calls of birds in the canopy above might be exactly what allows you to relax. But what sounds soothing to humans may signal danger to other animals – and trigger fear across the forest. In our research, published today in Current Biology, we show that when some animals spot a predator, they issue a warning cry that is picked up by others and spread through the rainforest canopy. For a time, different species are linked into a shared information network, and parts of the forest briefly fall silent. (via Science Alert)

4. Not for the faint of heart: Every November, approximately one-fifth of the world’s Adélie Penguins gather to nest on seven craggy outcrops near the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula. The Danger Islands cover just 1.7 square miles but provide breeding grounds for the world’s largest known Adélie population—only discovered about a decade ago—plus at least nine other bird species, including Gentoo Penguins. To protect them, Germany and the United States successfully campaigned in 2024 to designate the Danger Islands as an Antarctic Specially Pro­tected Area. In late 2025, as part of Germany’s new responsibil­ity to manage the conservation zone, scientists there spearheaded a scientific expedition to the islands to study the penguins and emerging threats—and try to get ahead of them so that the birds continue to thrive. (via Audubon)

5. A plan for Maryland's salt marshes: A new report from the National Audubon Society presents the first landscape-scale restoration plan for Maryland’s remaining 172,000 acres of salt marsh—habitat vital to imperiled birds, coastal communities, and the health of the Chesapeake Bay. The report warns that Maryland’s iconic salt marshes are rapidly disappearing due to rising seas, coastal flooding, and land subsidence, but also outlines a science-based, collaborative roadmap to protect and restore them. Working closely with partners and community members, Audubon scientists used innovative spatial modeling to identify the highest priority marsh for conservation and restoration. The result is an in-depth blueprint for what it will take to halt and reverse Maryland’s salt marsh crisis. (via Audubon)

6. In Alaska, "poetry and prose become tools not just for appreciation, but for responsibility": At the bottom of the earth, aboard an expedition ship crossing the rocky waters of the Drake Passage between Argentina and Antarctica, ornithologist Rodrigo Tapia might be giving a lecture on seabirds that begins with the poem “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.” It’s the haunting story of a sailor who kills an albatross and is forced to endure supernatural punishment at sea, ultimately learning a hard lesson about humanity’s responsibility to the world. “It’s a very good allegory of the relationship between man and the environment,” Tapia says, pointing to the moment when the albatross is senselessly executed—“this blessing of nature ends”—and everything changes. (via Audubon)

By Hap Ellis, Short-billed Dowitcher - Fort De Soto, Tampa Bay, FL.

7. Very concerning: You might know the short-tailed shearwater and sable shearwater by the common name “muttonbirds”. These two species of seabird breed on islands off southeastern Australia. Both undertake a breathtaking two-week, non-stop flight across the Pacific to the Bering Sea, more than 10,000 km away near Alaska and Russia. Here, they spend the northern summer. Shearwaters have to survive often-ferocious conditions. Researchers using tracking technology found a shearwater flying inside the eye of a hurricane for 11 hours at an altitude of 4,700 m and winds exceeding 200 km/hr. The bird lived. These remarkable birds have evolved special features such as tendons in their shoulder joints allowing them to take advantage of intense winds. (via The Conversation)

8. Who knew?: The telltale V-formations of migrating Canada geese each spring are usually welcome harbingers of warmer weather. They are also a visible warning that your chances of stepping in something unpleasant at a local park, sports field or greenspace have dramatically increased. The iconic migratory birds are big poopers, and their waste is not just off-putting, but can seriously damage local ecosystems. However, all that goose poop may have benefits. As a new Concordia study shows, goose feces — abundant in the urban environment and rich in nutrients — can play an important role up and down the food chain. This is especially true when processed by the black soldier fly, an insect commonly used in agricultural production. (via Eureka Alert)

9. 'Tis the season - USF&W offers broad-based information on activities and projects that impact migrating birds: To better protect migratory bird populations and provide more certainty for the regulated community, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, or Service, works to address human-caused mortality by providing information on measures people can take to avoid and minimize the take of migratory birds. The Service is the federal agency delegated the primary responsibility for managing birds, as authorized by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918, as amended (16 U.S.C. 703 et seq.), which implements treaties with Canada, Mexico, Japan, and Russia. Over the past century, the Service has worked with agencies, Tribes, industry, nongovernmental organizations, and academia to conserve more than 1,100 species on the List of Birds Protected by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act by addressing the threats to their survival. (via U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service)

By Hap Ellis, Wilson's Plover - Fort De Soto, Tampa Bay, FL.

10. BNI is not sure about this strategy, but...: Robins, pelicans and Canada geese are a few of the bird species making their return to Wisconsin this spring. And we are watching. One-third of Americans consider themselves birdwatchers, according to a survey by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Matt Reetz, executive director of the Southern Wisconsin Bird Alliance, said spring migration is one of the most exciting times of the year for birders like him. Want to experience the thrill of the migration? Anyone can be a birder, Reetz said. You don’t need a khaki vest or big binoculars. (via Wisconsin Public Radio)

11. Tips for new birders: Back in the day, you had to carry a printed guidebook to identify an unfamiliar species. Today, you can just reach into your pocket and grab your phone. There are several different apps available for birding, but the best I’ve used is Merlin, a free download for both Android and iOS. Merlin is developed by the folks at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, a group that knows birds. Like a field guide, it lets you look up any species by name, and includes identification tools to help you find birds when you’re out and about. (via PC Mag)

12. And then there's this advice from a BNI favorite: The first pine warbler and east­ern phoebe showed up in my yard over a week early this year. Birds are already migrat­ing into Maine for the sum­mer. I guess it’s time to review my advice on how best to identify them. First, don’t blindly trust books. (via Bangor Daily News)

13. New kid in town: As birth announcements go, this one is short on details. Is the newborn a boy or a girl? (Unclear.) When, exactly, did it enter the world? (Don’t know that, either.) Have the parents chosen a name? (Or that.) But birders who have been watching a video feed from a certain nest in Lower Manhattan do know that the newborn is the first peregrine falcon to hatch there in several years. (via The New York Times)

By Hap Ellis, Hudsonian Whimbrels - Fort De Soto, Tampa Bay, FL.

14. For those who are avid bird feeders, some fun data from Project FeederWatch: Between February and April 2025, we asked FeederWatchers to watch for and record instances of bird-glass collisions as part of a short-term study to better understand factors that may increase the risk of birds flying into glass on residential buildings. We were surprised that 597 participants reported nearly 1,500 collisions over this short period — a time when collisions are reportedly less common than during migration and breeding seasons! We are analyzing these data to make recommendations to reduce collisions, which often injure or kill birds. (via CornellLab)

15. And finally, no disability slows down this parrot: Bruce, a 13-year-old kea in New Zealand, long ago lost the top half of his beak. It didn’t prevent his climb to the top. In 2021, a disabled parrot named Bruce made headlines worldwide for creating his own prosthetic beak. He didn’t stop there: Scientists reported on Monday that Bruce has now become the alpha male of his group. And he did it by learning to joust. The new research, published in Current Biology, is an important addition to a small but growing number of observations that demonstrate just how resilient animals with disabilities can be, said Alice Auersperg, a cognitive biologist at the University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna who was not involved in the study. “The link between innovation and disability in animals is important and completely understudied,” she said. (via The New York Times)

Bird Videos of the Week

Video by FNQ Nature Tours, “Wild Australian Emu’s in North Queensland”.

Cornell Live Bird Cam - Hellcat Osprey nest.

Cornell Live Bird Cam - Spring migrants.

2. Finding “a sense of belonging and healing within this world of abundant birdsong”: Human connection to nature has decreased by 60% in the last 200 years, according to a study published last year in the journal Earth. Factors include the loss of wildlife in neighborhoods, issues of equitable access, habitat loss and more. Researcher Miles Richardson describes the decline in nature connectedness as a root cause of the environmental crisis at hand. What if rekindling our relationship to the nature around us might actually be one of the most vital and integral tools we have in response to threats to the wildlife and ecosystems we cherish most? Or to the attempted rollbacks of environmental protections we’re facing? (via The Invading Sea)

* BNI is a huge fan of Green Cay and highly recommends a visit if you are in the Delray FL area.

By Hap Ellis, Cape May Warbler - Longboat Key, FL

3. “The Bird from hell” as metaphor for our worst tendencies? Another look at “Cormorant: A Cultural History of Greed and Prejudice” from The Economist: Few beasts have such a bestial reputation as the cormorant. It has been called the “bird from Hell”, “black death”, “devil bird” and “fish terrorist”. Fishermen despise it. Poets and novelists have captured it ominously. Where did the bird go so wrong? Gordon McMullan, a professor of English at King’s College London, argues that the cormorant has been “caught up in the tendency of human culture to sort animals…into binary categories of ‘good’ and ‘bad’, imposing a moral perspective on nature”. His new book offers a perceptive “cultural history of greed and prejudice”—not just of a bird, but of human beings. (via The Economist)

4. Scientific American takes us back to the end-Cretaceous mass extinction time: On the final day of the Cretaceous period, some 66 million years ago, Earth was teeming with a dazzling variety of dinosaurs. In North America, the superpredator Tyrannosaurus rex stalked its favorite prey, the three-horned Triceratops. In Asia, agile raptors eyed herds of duck-billed and armored herbivores, and a menagerie of miniature carnivores and plant eaters roamed the European islands. South of the equator long-necked behemoths heavier than jet airplanes shook the ground as they walked. And all over the world feather-covered dinosaurs flaunted their plumage, some flapping and flying through the air. (via Scientific American)

5. Nothing we can do? The wild bird trade continues unabated: Worldwide, people buy and hunt nearly half of the 11,000 bird species in existence. In Asia, Europe, and North and South America, songbirds and parrots are highly desired pets. Collectors pay exorbitant sums for rare species or melodious birds to compete in high-stakes singing competitions.Falconers and sport hunters capture or kill raptors. Belief-based rituals in West Africa incorporate vulture parts. Buyers in North America seek dead hornbills and hummingbirds as home décor. The list goes on. This massive commerce threatens more than 200 avian species with extinction. Now, as online marketplaces proliferate, customers can order a bird with a swipe on their phone from anywhere on the planet. Moving birds around the world also spreads deadly diseases, from avian influenza to circovirus, and when non-native birds get loose, they may proliferate, outcompeting residents. (via Mongabay)

6. Woodcocks continue to wow the City that Never Sleeps: Amid Manhattan’s constant motion, something unusual has been slowing people down. At Bryant Park, clusters of New Yorkers have been gathering with cameras, binoculars and a surprising amount of patience, all for a chance to spot a small, elusive bird that has briefly taken up residence in the city. It is not flashy at first glance, blending easily into the leaf-covered ground with its mottled brown feathers. But for those who know what to look for, the draw is immediate. The bird in question is an American woodcock, a migratory species that rarely becomes a centerpiece in an urban setting. Its presence in such a high-traffic area has turned an ordinary park into a temporary wildlife destination. Office workers stop on their way home. Curious passersby linger longer than planned. What begins as a quick look often turns into something closer to a shared experience, with strangers quietly pointing, whispering and waiting for the moment the bird begins to move. (via Pet Helpful)

By Hap Ellis, Osprey - Fort De Soto State Park, Tampa Bay, FL.

7. What it takes to see 299 species in a year with no car: Portland-based birder Thomas Meinzen started 2025 with a mission: To walk, bike and hop on public transit around Oregon to find as many bird species as possible as part of what’s known as a Big Year. A Big Year in birding is a quest to identify, by sight or sound, the highest number of bird species possible within a specific geographic area, according to the National Audubon Society. Meinzen calls his approach a “green Big Year.” Over 12 months, the 29-year-old cycled 3,764 miles, making nine trips to the Oregon coast, six to the Columbia Gorge, a dozen to Sauvie Island and 10 to Eugene. During breaks from work, he also rode and bused throughout central Oregon from Portland to Sisters, Bend, Burns, Malheur and back. Meinzen co-leads the Columbia Slough Watershed Council’s naturalist program, coordinates Portland tree-planting efforts with Friends of Trees and teaches bird field classes with the Bird Alliance of Oregon. A passage in his greenbirder.substack blog expressed his enjoyment: “Midway through December, I had a lucky break with a spontaneous trip to Newport in pursuit of a celebrity bird appearance: a snowy owl,” he wrote. (via OregonLive)

8. The national bird gets not one but five stamps: Intrinsic to the national identity of the United States since the early days of the republic, the bald eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) has been a favorite stamp subject for more than a century. These latest stamps offer a new take on the American icon and feature realistic illustrations of the bird at different stages of life. Derry Noyes, an art director for USPS, designed the stamps using original paintings by noted ornithologist and illustrator David Allen Sibley. The mighty raptor has been celebrated on U.S. stamps since 1869. Bald Eagle: Hatchling to Adult continues the long tradition of spotlighting these magnificent birds on American postage. Bald Eagle: Hatchling to Adult stamps will be issued in panes of 20. As Forever stamps, they will always be equal in value to the current First-Class Mail 1-ounce price. (via United States Postal Service)

9. Tree swallows fight through the early Spring cold snaps: Warming temperatures from climate change cause tree swallows to nest up to two weeks earlier than they did in the 1970s, but early spring cold snaps can hinder nestlings’ growth and survival, according to a new study that incorporates a four-decade Cornell dataset on the birds. While previous papers examining the survival of nestlings during early spring cold snaps provided population-level insights, this paper focused on whether individual birds differ behaviorally during such cold spells, which in turn, has revealed dynamics that help explain why nestlings might struggle when temperatures fluctuate. (via Cornell Chronicle)

By Hap Ellis, Loggerhead Shrike - Fort De Soto State Park, Tampa Bay, FL.

10. A look at the Osprey population in the Chesapeake Bay: Scientists are concerned about how ospreys are faring in the Chesapeake Bay and rely on long-term data collection to learn more. On a windy afternoon earlier this week, Reese Lukei and Keriann Spiewak pushed off from a boat ramp along a branch of the Lynnhaven River. Spiewak, senior trainer of animal ambassadors at the Virginia Aquarium & Marine Science Center, and Lukei, a research associate with William & Mary’s Center for Conservation Biology, pulled out clipboards and binoculars and started scanning the shoreline. They were on “Osprey Watch,” looking for some of Hampton Roads’ most beloved birds of prey. Officials conduct the surveys each year to track the osprey population over time. This week’s was one of the first of the season.Spiewak said the team looks for which nests are active and what’s inside to get baseline data. Then they’ll keep checking through July. (via WHRO)

11. Raves for this study - a “huge, high profile, career-defining” discovery: Ginger, a six-foot-tall southern cassowary, has a calm temperament that makes her receptive to experiments. On a warm March night in Florida in 2021, scientists wanted to find out if keratin—a protein found in human skin and hair—in the horn-like structure on her head would fluoresce in ultraviolet light. This had never been documented in these large, flightless birds. Todd Green, an anatomist and paleontologist, brought along an ultraviolet flashlight on his visit to the Cassowary Conservation Project in Florida, where Ginger lives. Ultraviolet light is invisible to humans, but visible to many birds. “It was one of the brightest fluorescences I’ve ever seen,” he says. “I audibly gasped.” (via National Geographic)

12. Absolved in Hawaii: A new study from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa is overturning a decades-old belief that Indigenous Hawaiians hunted native waterbirds to extinction. Instead, researchers found no scientific evidence supporting this claim and propose a more complex explanation involving climate change, invasive species, and shifts in land use—many occurring before Polynesian arrival or after traditional stewardship systems were disrupted. (via Science Daily)

By Hap Ellis, American Oystercatcher - Longboat Key, FL.

13. Also from Hawaii -turns out the Apapane are quilty of the “quiet canopy crime”: High in the forests of Hawai‘i, songbirds are stealing twigs and moss from one another’s nests. UC Riverside researchers found this quiet canopy crime is surprisingly common and could threaten species already struggling to survive. A new study led by Erin Wilson Rankin, a UCR entomologist, offers a detailed look into nest-material theft among Hawaiian forest birds, a behavior known as kleptoparasitism. While scientists have long noted such theft anecdotally, this is the first time it’s been tracked and quantified in the wild. (via UC Riverside)

* More on the Apapane here: Apapane - Himatione sanguinea - (via Birds of the World)

14. Supporting a “fundamental evolutionary theory”: In a new study, appearing in Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, scientists selectively bred Japanese quails into two groups: laying either relatively large or small eggs. As the quails don’t do much “parenting” after eggs hatch, mothers’ main contribution is the resources they transfer to their eggs (chicks from larger eggs are more likely to survive). After five to six generations of selective breeding, females bred to lay larger eggs aged faster and died about 20% younger than females bred for small eggs. The findings of the study—led by the University of Exeter—support a fundamental evolutionary theory: that high “investment” in offspring unavoidably leads to faster aging and a shorter life. (via Phys Org)

15. Bird flu latest study: An international group of scientists mapped the spread of the current dominant strain of highly pathogenic avian influenza virus through North American bird populations in 2024. Led by scientists from St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, the collaboration provides a comprehensive view of this novel flu spreading through birds in North America. The investigators collected and sequenced samples from birds across the continent, letting them map the virus’s spread. They also compared the virus from birds to those causing human infections, showing that current human vaccine stockpiles will likely work well against both. Closer evaluation of the viruses led the researchers to classify them as low risk for human-to-human spread in their current form. The study was published today in Nature Medicine. (via Phys Org)

16. Tracking one successful falcon nest (which you can’t miss given the sign above it!): All signs point to a full nest this season, with the UC Davis Health peregrine falcon appearing to settle in with a brood of four eggs. The mother falcon is now in full nesting mode, spending most of her time tucked low in the nest, keeping the eggs warm and protected. Her movements have slowed and become more deliberate — a clear signal that incubation is well underway. Meanwhile, the father falcon continues to make regular appearances, stopping by the nest area periodically to check in on the family before heading back out. Together, the pair is settling into the steady rhythm of nesting season, marking another exciting milestone for this year’s falcon watch. Watch live cameras. (via UC Davis Health)

17. Finally, let’s finish with another BNI favorite, Scott Weidensaul, who has a new book. We love the subtitle: “Saving Birds to Save the Planet”: North America has lost billions of birds since 1970, but some species are actually bucking this concerning trend and returning to places where humans hadn’t seen them in decades. Here & Now‘s Peter O’Dowd speaks with ornithologist and author Scott Weidensaul about his new book, “The Return of the Oystercatcher: Saving Birds to Save the Planet,” about some global success stories of bird recovery. (via WBUR)

Bird Videos of the Week

Video by Nature of PBS, “Hummingbird Builds Tony Nest”.

Cornell Live Bird Cam - The second owlet.

Cornell Live Bird Cam - Cornell Hawks nest.

2. From the Antarctic, very concerning news: Emperor penguins, the world’s largest and perhaps most recognizable penguin species, have joined the list of wildlife endangered by global warming, the International Union for Conservation of Nature announced on Thursday. In an update of its Red List, a comprehensive and authoritative listing of global species based on their extinction risk, the group also said that Antarctic fur seals had moved into the endangered category and that southern elephant seals had moved to vulnerable. In the case of penguins and fur seals, the changes were largely driven by shifts in sea ice levels and food availability linked to global warming, researchers said. (via The New York Times)

By Hap Ellis, Black-bellied Plover - Longboat Key, FL.

3. Back in the day (1932, to be exact), the Australian government declared "war" on Emus - but the Emus out foxed them: When it comes to strange animals, no place in the world is quite like Australia—literally. For example, almost 90 percent of Australia’s mammals and 45 percent of its birds are endemic to the continent, which is one of the highest rates in the world. Among those unique animal gems is the emu (Dromaius novaehollandiae), a flightless bird that can grow up to six feet tall and is the second-largest bird in the world (behind Africa’s common ostrich). From the perspective of the emu, humans are the newcomers. Emus are a member of the ratite family (which also includes ostriches, rheas, cassowaries, and kiwis, among others), and their ancient lineage has been around for nearly 80 million years, making them the oldest bird family and a direct link to the age of dinosaurs. Emus have also remained largely unchanged for tens of millions of years and have survived a number of large-scale challenges to the species, including the initial human settlement of the continent 65,000 to 40,000 years ago, the arrival of the dingo some 5,000 years ago, and British colonization of the continent in the early 19th century. With this battle-hardened past, the emu faced down yet another threat to its existence in the 1930s—wheat farming. (via Popular Mechanics)

4. "(S)mall protected areas, by themselves, aren't enough" - a look at tropical and subtropical forest issues: An analysis of 50 datasets from more than 1,000 individual parcels of tropical and subtropical forest show that avian species richness declines fastest when those pieces of habitat are surrounded by areas that woodland birds find inhospitable. The study by an international collaboration that included Matthew Betts of the Oregon State University College of Forestry suggests the conservation value of forest remnants could be greatly increased simply by working to give the areas around habitat patches more tree cover. Findings of the project led by scientists in Brazil and at Slippery Rock University in Pennsylvania were published in theProceedings of the National Academies of Sciences. (via Oregon State University Newsroom)

5. "Bringing hope to a dire situation" - an overview of the "race to conserve the native Hawaiian manu nahele (forest birds)": Birds, Not Mosquitoes (BNM), an initiative by American Bird Conservancy and many other partners, is committed to halting the extinction of some of the rarest birds in the world: Hawaiian forest birds. Hawaiʻi’s birds face a conservation crisis: Of the more than 50 native honeycreepers that once flourished in Hawaiʻi’s forests, only 17 species remain. Those that are left — the ʻAkikiki, Kiwikiu, ʻAkekeʻe, and ʻIʻiwi, among others — are at severe risk from mosquito-borne avian malaria, a deadly disease that is hastening the decline of these vulnerable birds. (via ABC Birds)

6. Some enchanting evening? How about some "enchanting masked owl": A traditional owner on a north Australian island has captured rare photos of an “enchanting” masked owl, adding to a limited knowledge base surrounding the endemic and culturally significant bird. Local avid birdwatcher Craig Kurrujuwa Winston first heard the Tiwi Islands masked owl — or pinjoma, as it’s known in Indigenous culture — was in the vicinity when his little brother spotted it earlier this year. Days later at around 9pm, Mr Winston saw the bird perched in his Melville Island yard, scoping out a brushtail possum. Before Mr Winston logged his sighting of the “enchanting” creature on iNaturalist, there were no images of the Tiwi Islands masked owl listed on the citizen science database. (via ABC News)

* More on this owl for those interested: Australian Masked-Owl - Tyto novaehollandiae (via Birds of the World)

By Hap Ellis, Ruddy Turnstone - Longboat Key, FL.

7. To the Adirondacks, with one of our favorite nature writers (and bird bander): Yesterday was like getting up on Christmas morning to new fallen snow, and it was still coming down, but this is April and the 90,000 birds that just flew north last week didn’t like the looks of it. More than 200 descended on my feeders. The slate colored juncos and evening grosbeaks were the majority on the flock but there were 25 common grackles and a flock of red-winged blackbirds. A few song sparrows and fox sparrows were in the mix. The blue jays had left here last week and only three or four were left here. One lone American robin was here, and it had just looked at the nesting site under the porch roof the day before now; it was looking for a bare spot to flip leaves looking for a worm. I swept out the feeding area and scattered seed for the seed eaters; the robin would have to fend for himself. (via Adirondack Explorer)

8. Birds & Climate change - a primer: As spring progresses, billions of birds are set to take flight on migratory journeys in search of their summer breeding grounds. Of the more than 650 species of North American breeding birds, more than half migrate each year. The vast majority take flight at night, and some fly hundreds or even thousands of miles nonstop. Bird migration typically peaks between mid-April and mid-May across the U.S. as hundreds of different species head north. Migratory birds are highly attuned to the environmental cues (such as temperature, rainfall, day length, and plant growth) that they use to align their spring arrival with blooming plants, abundant food, and ideal temperatures in their breeding grounds. But this environmental sensitivity also makes birds vulnerable to rapid climate change. Shorter winters,spring warming, and earlier first spring. (via Climate Central)

9. The early bird gets the worm, the saying goes; but exactly how do Robins actually get that worm?: We all know the early bird gets the worm, but how does he find it? That American Robin in your neighborhood park—how did it dig up the juicy nightcrawler dangling from its bill? After all, worms live mostly underground where we can’t see them. A study back in 1965 concluded that robins do so exclusively by sight, the idea being that worm burrows provide peepholes into the underground world. Robins seem to peer down into the burrows and jam their bills in those that are occupied, the paper said. But three decades later, a similar study reached a much different conclusion: It produced evidence that American Robins rely on their hearing to find buried food. (via Audubon)

By Hap Ellis, Black Skimmer - Longboat Key, FL.

10. Unveiling the secrets of the chimney swifts: At dusk in August 2025, a group gathered in the parking lot of Housatonic Valley Regional High School in Connecticut to watch the sky fill with a flurry of birds, their cigar-shaped bodies dipping and swirling around the school’s chimney. Sunny Kellner, wildlife rehabilitation manager for the Sharon Audubon Center, held a Chimney Swift in her gloved hand, then released it to join the living vortex. Kellner and her staff had worked tirelessly to care for this creature—as they do each year for dozens of swifts whose nests similarly fall to the ground. “People always ask, ‘How do you know the birds that you rehab survive?’” Kellner says. Her team has now set out to get an answer. The center worked with Audubon biologists to tag rehabbed swifts with radio transmitters, hoping to learn how their patients fare and understand more about the species’ behavior. “There are a whole lot of question marks that follow that little swift up into the air,” says Eileen Fielding, Sharon Audubon Center director. (via Audubon Magazine)

11. What happens when you apply electricity to piezoelectric materials? Robots fly like birds: A bird banking in a crosswind doesn’t rely on spinning blades. Its wings flex, twist and respond instantly to its environment. Engineers at Rutgers University have taken a major step toward building bird-like drones that move the same way, flapping their wings like real birds, using electricity-driven materials instead of conventional electromagnetic motors to power them. In a study published in Aerospace Science and Technology, aerospace researchers Xin Shan and Onur Bilgen describe a “solid state” bird-like drone, typically referred to as an ornithopter, whose flexible wings flap and twist without motors, gears or mechanical linkages. Instead, the system relies on the piezoelectric effect, special materials that change shape when voltage is applied. (via Rutgers Newsroom)

12. And speaking of robotic birds, there is a mechanical sage grouse! Why? Well, check this out...": How well can a robotic bird mimic a real one? That’s what Grand Teton National Park is trying to find out with mechanical sage grouse replicas built to influence the behaviors of real sage grouse, whose numbers have long been declining across the American West. Sage grouse, which are about the size of chickens, are the largest grouse in North America. They’re known for their round bodies, superior camouflage and, on males, pointed tail feathers and yellow chest sacs that inflate during mating dances. Since 1965, their populations have dropped by 80% across the West, and at a breeding site inside Grand Teton, the male sage grouse count dropped from 73 in 1950 to three last year, according to WyoFile. Male sage grouse strut and fluff their spiky tail feathers in an elaborate courtship ritual every spring. Robotic birds made by the RoboBroncs, the local robotics team at Jackson Hole High School, simulate this activity in an attempt to draw in the real ones. The robotic grouse are made to look lifelike, with real feathers provided by the Wyoming Game and Fish Department. (via SF Gate)

By Hap Ellis, Early Spring warbler (Palm Warbler) - Millennium Park, Boston, MA.

13. Avian flu update - from the Hamptons!: Georgica Pond is the brackish coastal pond in East Hampton, Long Island, around which sit the summer homes of the filmmaker Steven Spielberg and the hip-hop mogul Jay-Z. This winter, however, the pond went from a picturesque location to a horror scene when more than 700 dead geese lined its sandy shore and the surrounding area. Their deaths came at a time when much of the South and North Forks of Long Island were hit with a scourge of H5N1, also known as bird flu. Wildlife conservationists believe the outbreak was principally caused by an unusually long spell of freezing temperatures, which meant birds were dealing with scarce resources and weakened immune systems. (via The New York Times)

14. Backyard birders take note: Garden birds should not be fed seeds and nuts over the summer months, the RSPB has said, in an attempt to reduce the spread of avian diseases. Bird lovers are being urged to take down their bird feeders between May and October to help birds such as the greenfinch, whose numbers have plummeted after the spread of trichomonosis, a parasitic disease transmitted more easily when birds cluster around feeders in the warmer months. In new guidance, the RSPB is advising people to “feed safely and feed seasonally” by removing all bird feeders filled with seeds and peanuts and instead offering small amounts of protein such as mealworms, fat balls or suet from 1 May to 31 October, since they tend not to attract clusters of finches and protein is useful for the birds to feed their chicks. (via The Guardian)

15. Book review: The cormorant species as the subject of a "remarkable story"?: How does prejudice grow and mutate? What does intolerance, when transferred from human beings onto animals, do to those creatures? And what, in return, does it do to us? Cormorant is the gripping story of a ‘greedy’ bird hated across the world, the object of global conflict between the fishing industry on the one hand and environmental science on the other. Gordon McMullan’s book reveals that cormorants have been loathed for centuries, a detestation that has metamorphosed over time. Drawing on fields which include literature, art history and zoology, and ranging from America to China and from Britain to Peru, Cormorant explores racism, xenophobia and capitalism through the remarkable story of a bird. McMullan argues that if in the present we are to recognize prejudicial attitudes towards animals and our fellow human beings, then we need to look to the past to understand how those viewpoints have taken hold. (via Amazon)

16. Finally, we've experienced this "Biggest Week" and it definitely lives up to hype. As does this article (plus perfect pics of Cerulean and Blackburnian Warblers). Check it out: The suburbs of Toledo, Ohio, in early May may seem an unlikely spring break destination, but birders in the know, like Kimberly Kaufman, executive director of the Black Swamp Bird Observatory and one of the Biggest Week’s founders, would disagree. “All the birding stars align for us here in northwest Ohio,” Kimberly explains. “When migratory birds move north in spring, a large expanse of water poses a daunting barrier. Before crossing Lake Erie, small songbirds need to rest and feed to build their energy reserves. As a result, large concentrations of these birds converge on the patches of wooded habitat along our lakeshore in spring.” The festival is not only a gathering of birds; nearly 90,000 people visit the warbler capital of the world to catch a glimpse of the fliers passing through. I was lucky enough to join in. (via Birds and Blooms)

Bird Videos of the Week

Video by PBS, “How Great Grey Owls Hunt Hidden Prey”.

Cornell Live Bird Cam - The Great Horned Owl Nest.

Cornell Live Bird Cam - Hungry Owlet.

2. Attention New Yorkers - the woodcocks are back (briefly) at Bryant Park: The paparazzi staked out their turf, elbow to elbow with dozens of other gawkers on their lunch break on an unseasonably warm spring day in Bryant Park in Midtown Manhattan. Pétanque balls clanged in the background on Tuesday as one celebrity visitor, an American woodcock, a migratory bird, bopped along in a manner befitting John Travolta in “Saturday Night Fever.” An artist, Bird Warde, 28, a former New Yorker who lives in Maine, glanced up from a sketchbook. “Oh, my God,” Mrs. Warde said. “It’s my first time seeing the dance for more than a second.” (via The New York Times)

By Hap Ellis, Spring Migration: American Woodcock - Parker River NWR, Newburyport, MA.

3. Good news from the UK: Cranes enjoyed a record-breaking breeding season in 2025, with surveys showing that 87 pairs successfully raised 37 chicks across the UK. The results mark the highest number of breeding pairs recorded and bring the total UK population to around 250 birds, including both adults and non-breeding individuals. This latest milestone highlights the continued recovery of a species that was once lost from the British landscape, offering a clear example of how long-term conservation work can reverse historical declines. (via The Telegraph)

4. 200 years later in the Galapagos...a new bird?: Almost 200 years after Charles Darwin’s groundbreaking trip to the Galápagos islands, a graduate student from San Francisco State University (SFSU) in California discovered a new Galápagos bird species. Ezra Mendales found that the Galápagos lava heron (Butorides sundevalli) is actually a distinct species, and not a subspecies of the South American striated heron (Butorides striata), as scientists previously believed. The bird is described in a study published in the journal Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution. The Galápagos lava heron is one of 72 new species recently described by researchers with the California Academy of Sciences (Cal Academy). At about 14 to 19 inches tall, Butorides herons like the lava heron are among the smallest of these leggy birds. (via Popular Science)

5. Seabirds and the importance of IBA's: Every year, birds travel extraordinary distances to reach the productive coastal waters of California, where they depend on critical marine and coastal habitats recognized as Important Bird Areas (IBAs). Sooty Shearwaters undertake one of Earth’s longest migrations, breeding in New Zealand before crossing the vast Pacific Ocean to feed in places like Monterey Bay, where they forage offshore within the Piedras Blancas Marine IBA near Cambria. Elegant Terns travel as far south as Chile, but some first feast in places like Aramburu Island in Richardson Bay, part of Audubon’s sanctuary, and nest and forage within the Palos Verdes Marine IBA, an area that supports an estimated two percent of the global population. IBAs are much more than lines on a map—they reflect incredible bird journeys and help us protect the places birds like Sooty Shearwaters and Elegant Terns depend on throughout their remarkable migration cycle. (via Audubon)

6. Speaking of seabirds, a concerning story from the beaches of Santa Barbara: Dead and dying seabirds are breaking the hearts of beachgoers. An Independent tipster described a scene she saw near Goleta Beach on Saturday, walking from the UC Santa Barbara Lagoon to Campus Point: a mass bird grave. She had never seen anything like it. First, she and her companion noticed at least 30 dead cormorants — those short, black seabirds — strewn across the rocks and sand. There are four local cormorant species in Santa Barbara. That includes the Brandt’s cormorant, known for perching on bluffs overlooking the ocean, and which have been observed moving up and down the coast in large numbers recently. The live birds our tipster saw may not have been dying — they may have just been stressed — but it was still a jarring spectacle. (via The Independent)

Spring Migration: Wilson's Snipe - Arnold Arboretum - Boston, MA.

7. What it takes - in this case "exclusion zones" in the UK: People are being asked to keep their distance at one of the island’s coastal beauty spots, to protect endangered birds nesting. Manx Birdlife has implemented an “exclusion zone” around Langness during the ground-nesting season from March to August. Of the island’s 332 known bird species, more than 200 have been recorded at the southern peninsula. To safeguard important nesting areas along the coast, signs and temporary rope barriers have been put up in key locations. The measures are aimed at reducing any disturbance to breeding birds, particularly species considered vulnerable or specially protected under Manx wildlife legislation. (via The BBC)

8. Quick video take - the beauty of a swan landing:

9. What 74,974 photographs can tell you: Anyone who keeps a bird feeder has likely had the same uneasy thought after seeing a sudden blur of wings in the yard: What was that hawk doing here? A University of Kentucky Martin-Gatton College of Agriculture, Food, and Environment (CAFE) study helps answer that question. Using thousands of photos shared through the citizen science platform iNaturalist, the authors took a closer look at the diets of two common hawks often seen around neighborhoods, feeders and wooded areas: The Cooper’s hawk and the sharp-shinned hawk. The study found both species are mainly hunters of other birds, filling an important gap in what scientists know about two raptors many people see but few fully understand. (via Phys Org)

10. Your bird of the day? Birds&Blooms takes a close look at Lark Buntings: Standing in stark contrast to the vast blue sky and the golden green prairie grasses, the bold black-and-white male lark bunting is a handsome sight to see. During the breeding season, these distinguished male sparrows are velvety black with white wing accents, a beautiful match for their pale gray beaks. Females, fledglings and nonbreeding males are sandy brown, sporting similar white wing coverts and fine-lined feather edges. It may surprise you to learn that this bird is classified as a sparrow, rather than a true member of the bunting bird family. (via Birds and Blooms)

By Hap Ellis, Ring-necked Duck - Chestnut Hill, MA.

11. The wren who changed everything: One day in late 2017, I sat writing. On this morning, I rode a fretful moment, the worry du jour being my first novel, Wren, for which I wasn’t finding a publisher. The challenge of publishing a first novel as an unknown literary novelist with no platform was weighing on me that day. Should I check in with that agent again; should I submit the novel for first-fiction contests; should I…, should I…? We all know this grip of worry, whether or not we work in the creative arts: the fear we are failing at something, missing something we should be doing, watching something we care about (whether kids or relationships or projects) slip from our [illusory] grip of control. (via Patheos)

12. For the botanists among us - "Taking a Birder's Approach to the Botanical World" - a NYT book review: “You see, but you don’t observe,” Sherlock Holmes says more than once to Dr. Watson in an 1891 Arthur Conan Doyle short story. The fictional detective’s vintage admonition feels just right today because let’s be honest: Between rounds of weed pulling, pruning and mulching, how much of the exquisitely intricate order of things in the botanical world outside have we slowed down enough to truly take in? The new book “Let’s Botanize” urges that we do just that: make time to pursue every curiosity, not just march to the demands of the to-do list or look closely only when something blooms or otherwise shows off. Even the most familiar plants probably have more to reveal than we’ve invested the time to notice. (via The New York Times)

Photos from Friends - By Elizabeth Rand, Guessing that the "Lights Out" movement won't hit Hong Kong any time soon! - Hong Kong, China.

13. US travel tip - a "melodious Eco-Resort" in PA: It’s 6:30 on a June morning, and the meadow beneath my eco-lodge balcony is abuzz with chirps, twills, warbles and tweets. The sun’s barely up, but I can already see boats heading out on picturesque F.J. Sayers Lake as the mist rises from its placid surface. Seems I’m not the only early bird at The Nature Inn at Bald Eagle, tucked inside Pennsylvania’s Bald Eagle State Park. From my perch, I note the presence of at least 14 distinct bird species—including indigo bunting, yellow warbler, American redstart, barn swallow, common yellowthroat and red-eyed vireo—identifying their calls with my trusty Merlin app. A flutter of bright yellow is likely a goldfinch, but I’m hoping to catch a glimpse of a warbler or bunting. As an amateur birder, I don’t have the drive to keep a “life list” of all the winged creatures I’ve seen, but I do enjoy a good game of hide-and-seek. (via Arlington Magazine)

14. And then check out Chris Cooper's global travel guide to birding:

15. Finally, this is what we might call "bird adjacent" (Hello Matt!): Do you ever worry that your brain’s slowing down and your mind is … what’s the word … fogging? If you do, I have news. A recent study on birdwatching, with the appropriately named lead author Erik Wing, found that learning to become an expert birder causes changes to the brain that may help to protect against age-related cognitive decline. These same areas also appear more compact, and age-related changes in them are smaller. The take-home message is that learning to tell a chiffchaff from a willow warbler could help us to stay mentally sharp as we age. But what about discerning a common quaker from a clouded drab? Or a brown-line bright-eye from a bright-line brown eye? These are the names, not of birds, but of moths. I’ve been hooked on moths ever since I was a kid. (via The Guardian)

Bird Video of the Week

Video by CBS New York, “American Woodcock Makes Yearly Appearance in NYC”.

Cornell Live Bird Cam - Rufous Motmot.

Cornell Live Bird Cam - Big Red wasn't joking around on April Fool's Day when she laid her fourth egg of the breeding season!

Happy Easter! Go Birding!

2. To New Zealand for a fun story on a cool bird - the Korora(or Little Penguin): We were clinging to the edge of a cliff, battered by the wind as storms gathered on the horizon. Dressed in camo to blend into the landscape, we remained still and silent – joined by a team of experts who track and monitor little blue penguins, or kororā, as they’re called in this part of New Zealand (Aotearoa). Only red torchlight was allowed on this cliffside, as bright white beams can disorient the kororā as they climb up from the ocean and into their nests scattered across the cliffs. Each night, under the cover of darkness, the penguins make this grueling journey from the sea to the land. As treacherous as this nightly trek was, somehow the penguins always made it, showing persistence even when knocked down. Each time, they got back up and kept going as if totally unfazed. This species of penguin is often viewed as a symbol of the broader environmental challenges faced here. But before getting into that, it’s worth understanding more about these charismatic seabirds, and why they matter so much in this rugged pocket of Aotearoa. (via Oceanographic Magazine)

By Hap Ellis, Bald Eagle - Millennium Park, Boston, MA.

3. And from South Africa, a concerning study on the country's raptor population: A comprehensive study has revealed substantial declines in many of South Africa’s birds of prey (raptors) over the past 16 years, raising fresh concerns about the conservation status of several iconic and threatened species. Researchers assessed population trends for 18 raptor and 8 large terrestrial bird species across central South Africa between 2009 and 2025. Half of the species experienced significant declines, many exceeding 50%, while only three showed clear increases. “These results point to widespread and often severe population declines across South Africa’s raptor community,” said Dr Santiago Zuluaga, lead author of the study and a researcher at the University of Cape Town and National Museum of Natural Sciences of Spain. “What is particularly concerning is that some of the steepest declines were detected in species that play key ecological roles and are already considered conservation priorities.” (via Eureka Alert)

4. Lovely piece on "unplugging" by birding: I recently went birding for the first time in two years – having twin babies has a way of putting your hobbies on hold. But this trip to one of my favorite spots, Huntley Meadows Park in Alexandria, Virginia, reminded me why I love it so much. Ambling along the wetlands boardwalk, I saw two birds for the first time: a common yellowthroat and a blue grosbeak. I’m no ornithologist, but I’ll venture a scientific observation: If the McDonald’s Hamburglar were a bird, he’d be a common yellowthroat. Go ahead, Google it. Tell me I’m wrong. This bird has mocked me since I began birding six years ago. It’s very common, you see – one might even call it the everyday or can’t-miss-it or dime-a-dozen yellowthroat. For me, it might as well have been a resplendent quetzal. (via The Christian Science Monitor)

5. And speaking of "unplugging", a huge shout-out to actor Sean Bean and his podcast (Get Birding) in the NY Times: Long before his days as Boromir, and Ned Stark, and Macbeth, the English actor Sean Bean turned his head to the sky as a young schoolboy and discovered his love of birds. Although Bean’s life on set and as an often-traveling actor doesn’t always allow ample time for bird-watching, it’s something he consistently comes back to, no matter where he lives: “I’d always keep that interest in feeding the birds and watching out for them.” Bean has found himself once again out in the field. He recently narrated the documentary Osprey: Sea Raptor, and this year he became the host of the popular British birding podcast Get Birding. (via The New York Times)

6. In praise of Purple Martins: We’re in the full flush of spring. Here on the east coast of Vancouver Island, British Columbia, signs of renewal abound, including winged arrivals from Espírito Santo, Brazil—the ravenous and ravishing purple martins. I, too, am feeling revived. I think the new me has become better at finding joy in and connection to the burgeoning life around me: the unfurling leaves, the riot of blooms, the return of migratory birds—especially the purple martins. While the females of this species are mostly shades of gray, the males are a resplendent, iridescent purple-black. North America’s largest swallows, their acrobatic aerial feats as they pursue insects, and each other, command attention. Their complex vocalizations—urgent proclamations of metallic clicks and chirps reminiscent of R2-D2—delight me every time. (via bioGraphic)

By Hap Ellis, (rare) Barrow's Goldeneye - Boston Harbor, MA.

7. Birds and booze - well, more precisely hummingbirds and nectar: As bees and hummingbirds flit from flower to flower, greedily sipping nectar in exchange for pollination, the animals often get another treat: alcohol. In the first broad analysis of the alcohol content of flower nectars, University of California, Berkeley biologists found detectable alcohol in at least one flower of 26 of the 29 species of plants tested. While most samples had very low levels, almost certainly from yeast fermenting the sugars in the nectar, one contained 0.056% ethanol by weight: about 1/10 proof. While this concentration may seem minuscule, for some animals nectar is their main source of calories. Hummingbirds consume between 50% and 150% of their entire body weight in nectar every day. (via UC Berkley News)

8. Again (!) the tension between solar projects and open grasslands - this from New York: As New York advances its transition to clean energy, we face another environmental emergency — the dramatic loss of grassland birds. The 2025 “State of the Birds” report, produced by a coalition of scientific and conservation organizations, revealed that these birds are the fastest-declining species, with populations down more than 40% since 1970. Habitat loss is at the center of this crisis, and now the crisis is hitting home in the 13,000-acre Washington County Grasslands. Here, sweeping fields anchor a rare ecosystem that is one of the state’s last lifelines for vulnerable grassland birds, including the state-endangered short-eared owl and threatened northern harrier. (via Audubon)

9. In search of a tropical spring: Many years of scientific observation and research show that temperate birds nest in the spring, and their breeding seasons rarely vary by more than a few days from year to year for any given species. In contrast, scientists know little about the breeding seasons of tropical birds. The information that does exist suggests that species may shift their breeding times by up to one month at a given site. The recently published results of a five-year field study show that this variation has been drastically underestimated in tropical mountains, where — in some cases — whole chunks of the community can breed in opposite seasons in response to shifting climates and resource availability. (via Florida Museum)

10. "Secondary extinctions" - a report on the songbird trade in SE Asia: Increasing demand for songbirds is raising the risk of “secondary extinctions” of so-called “master birds” in Southeast Asia, conservationists warn. While these birds never enter the region’s songbird singing competitions, they have unique qualities to their songs. When caged near songbirds, elements of their calls can be learned, says Vincent Nijman, lead author of research documenting their demise and director of EcoVerde Global Consulting. They almost act as vocal coaches: Proximity to master birds can improve the songs of contest competitors like the white-rumped shama (Copsychus malabaricus), a bird prized for its melodic voice, increasing their chances of success. Judges evaluate birds in these contests on the duration of their song, rhythm, showmanship and volume. Researchers surveyed markets across Indonesia from 2011 to 2025, looking for crested jayshrikes (Platylophus galericulatus), a popular master bird. They discovered that they were sold openly at markets in Sumatra, Borneo, Java, Bali, Lombok and Sulawesi.(via Mongabay)

By Hap Ellis, American Oystercatcher - Boston Harbor, MA.

11. NYT Book review: In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a peculiar craze swept through America. Men — and they were almost always men — tramped through fields and climbed into aeries, raiding nests, pocketing eggs, blowing out embryos and arranging the shells in carefully labeled cabinets. Some claimed scientific motives; many were driven by something harder to explain. Known as oologists, these collectors became so numerous that they helped push several species toward extinction. The obsession wasn’t uniquely American, but the hobby flourished with particular zeal in the United States. The egg craze is one of the many afflictions chronicled in James H. McCommons’s “The Feather Wars,” an exhaustive — and sometimes exhausting — history of the early conservation movement. (via The New York Times)

12. For Tampa Bay area birders and beachgoers, Audubon reminds us coastal birds are already breeding: Beach-nesting and other coastal birds have begun laying eggs along Florida’s coasts and on rooftops in coastal areas. Spring and summer mark critical times of year for these vulnerable species, as they must try to find safe habitats away from human disturbance, storms, and predators to successfully raise their babies. While wading birds nest in coastal trees, sea and shorebirds lay their eggs right on the sand. If they can’t find suitable beach habitat, some birds resort to nesting on large, gravel rooftops. Tampa Bay area threatened species, in particular the American Oystercatcher, Least Tern, and Black Skimmer, perceive people as a threat and will take flight whenever beachgoers or their dogs approach nesting areas too closely. (via Audubon)

13. And for those in Texas, all you need to bird the Lone Star State this spring: Dust off the binoculars and fire up the Merlin, eBird, and Sibley apps: It’s prime time for Texas birding. Late February through May is spring migration, when avian species on the continent head north for the summer. One in three migrants pass through Texas.Spring migration in Texas means the squawking and honking of crane, heron, geese, and ducks thousands of feet overhead. It’s seeing flocks forming and reforming their chevron flight as they ride the southerlies up the Central Flyway to summer homes as distant as Canada, Alaska, and Siberia. This season also means the arrival of songbirds and hummingbirds from Mexico and Central and South America for nesting season. The songbirds’ melodic calls crescendo into a noisy symphony, accompanied by the high-pitched squeaks and chirps of the hummers zipping around. (via Texas Highways)

By Lisa Noschese - Western Gull - Goat Rock in Jenner, CA.

14. For backyard birders, some helpful advice: Spring is on the way in the Northern Hemisphere, meaning the birds in our backyards will soon make a lot more noise than before. I, for one, am excited. Birds are obviously great, but as with most subjects, there are all kinds of things we believe about them that have no basis in reality. Many of these ideas are related to our anxiety, as humans, about our interactions with nature—for example, should we feel bad about feeding the birds? Let’s look into what actual research suggests. (via Popular Science)

15. Finally, for that second cup of coffee, more of the best (pictures!) from The Cornell Lab's Macaulay Library: For our 2025 photo essay we’re celebrating wonderful photos in five themes: the lush, flower-filled habitats of birds in Birdlife in Full Bloom; fun companion shots in Double Vision; the rainbow of birds in Colors of the Bird World; cuteness, vulnerability, and the bonds of family in The Next Generation; wet and wild times in Making a Splash; and an exclusive meet-and-greet with some of the world’s least-seen birds in Rarities. In the final section, we say thank you to all the photographers who make the Macaulay Library archive such a uniquely rich resource. (via All About Birds)

* FYI - Cornell's Macaulay Library currently holds more than 84 million photographs and about 3.2 million sound recordings, along with several hundred thousand videos.

Bird Videos of the Week

Cornell Live Bird Cam - Big Red laid her second egg at the Cornell Hawks nest.

Cornell Live Bird Cam - Athena takes a moment to check on her eggs.

2. And then on a lighter note, the allure of …cigarette butts?: Darwin’s finches in the Galápagos, house finches in Mexico and song thrushes in New Zealand have all developed a curious habit: They put cigarette butts in their nests. Some songbirds in Britain are even nesting in outdoor ashtrays. A new study adds evidence for why urban birds have picked up this preference, at least in one species: The toxins in tobacco may keep parasites at bay in the nests of blue tits, colorful birds that are found across Europe. (via The New York Times)

By Hap Ellis, Red-winged Blackbird - Green Cay Nature Center & Wetlands, Boynton Beach, FL

3. More on the importance of the massive Farm Bill we highlighted last week: When the average person thinks about the Farm Bill, they likely think about, well … farms. The Farm Bill, one of the largest spending bills in the United States, covers everything from subsidies to farmers, crop insurance, and agricultural research to rural broadband infrastructure and food and nutrition programs. But the Farm Bill does much more than that: It happens to be the single largest source of conservation funding in the world. (via ABC Birds)

4. Audubon on the upcoming 15th Convention on Migratory Species: Lesser Yellowlegs migrate thousands of kilometers each year from North America to the Brazilian Pantanal, the world’s largest tropical wetland. Along the way, they stop to feed and rest, dependent on habitats conserved by governments and private citizens. But no single country is able to ensure the continued well-being of these and other migratory birds, as well as other migrant species. The health of their populations depends on actions taken by stakeholders in multiple countries. Audubon has long understood this—which is why we work in eleven countries throughout the Americas, and with partners that extend our reach even further, to conserve birds and the habitats on which they depend. (via Audubon)

5. Speaking of nest building, this study connects the spread of wild cotton to nest building in southern Africa: Birds play a larger role in the dispersal of wild cotton than previously assumed. This is shown by a study in the journal Oikos, carried out in southern Africa. Researchers discovered that birds actively collect wild cotton as nesting material and in doing so move seeds over distances of more than a kilometer. Cotton fibers were long seen as something that evolved to disperse seeds by wind, but birds also take them to their nests and in this way help disperse the seeds much further. The research took place in Mbuluzi Game Reserve in Eswatini. In this savannah area, researchers studied wild cotton (Gossypium herbaceum) and the nest-building behavior of two species of mousebirds. These were naturally occurring plants, not commercial cotton fields. (via Phys Org)

6. Returning New Zealand’s rare and extinct birds “to their cultural context”: The first time Fiona Pardington saw a huia bird it was in a Christmas pudding. The artist, then a girl, bit down on a slice of her Aunt Nelly’s cake, only to hit an old silver sixpence bearing an illustration of the extinct species. Pardington spat out the coin and looked at the bird, the male with its long, curved beak and pronounced wattle. She knew little about the huia; its distinctive song, nor its prized tail feathers. As an adult, she learned the bird was sacred to New Zealand’s Māori people, containing great “mana,” or life force. But it was hit hard by habitat loss, which accelerated after the arrival of European settlers, until it died out in the 1900s. Today the artist, who is of Māori and Scottish descent, sees the irony of her first encounter — liberating the bird from a symbol of the culture that caused its demise. The huia, like some other native bird species, have “haunted our history,” she said. (via CNN)

By Hap Ellis, Wood Duck - Arnold Arboretum, Boston, MA.

7. Nest building again (!) - 3D-printed nests to the rescue: Deep in the grounds of a stately palace near Oxford, in the southwest of England, designer Dan Parker is perched on a ladder, struggling to tie an unusual object to an ash tree. With his arms stretched high, Parker clings to something about the size of an electric toaster, with a rippled perimeter that looks like wood carved into waves. The object is light and hollow, with a single circular hole on one side. But it is the outer surface that stands out most: a wall that’s lumpy like cotton wool, yet hard, and, perhaps most notably, distinctly mushroom smelling. Parker’s creation is intended to outdo the typical bird box, which is used all around the world, but often fails to attract target species—or worse, confines them to cold, leaky conditions that can kill chicks. By redesigning the nesting shelter from scratch, he aims to provide a better start to life for cavity-nesting songbirds such as the rare marsh tit. (via National Geographic)

* BNI congratulates Kevin Maroni on his election as Chair of the storied National Geographic Society’s board of trustees

8. A case of “hidden diversity” – a new species discovered in Japan: An international research team including Japan’s Yamashina Institute for Ornithology said Wednesday that it has discovered a new bird species in the Tokara Islands of Kagoshima Prefecture. The new bird, named the Tokara leaf warbler, or Phylloscopus tokaraensis, is the first bird species to be given a scientific name in Japan since 1981, when the Okinawa rail was named Gallirallus okinawae. The team, which also included researchers from Japan’s Forestry and Forest Products Research Institute and the University of Gothenburg in Sweden, found that the Tokara leaf warbler is genetically and morphologically distinct from the Iijima’s leaf warbler, which has long been considered the same species. (via The Japan Times)

9. Hollow hair - “never, ever seen anything like this before”: Platypuses just got weirder. As if a mammal that lays eggs, senses electricity with its bill and fluoresces isn’t enough of a headscratcher, now it appears platypuses also share a feature with birds. Tiny pigment-filled packets in the mammals’ hair are hollow — a trait previously thought to be found only in avian feathers, researchers report March 17 in Biology Letters. Scientists have “never, ever seen anything like this before,” says biologist Jessica Dobson of Ghent University in Belgium. (via Science News)

By Hap Ellis, Snowy Owl - Parker River NWR, Newburyport, MA.

10. The BBC reports on a very popular “bird cam” high atop St. Albans Cathedral in Hertfordshire: A cathedral has turned on cameras to allow people to get a bird’s eye view of a family of peregrine falcons for the 2026 nesting season. The birds of prey have nested on the roof of St Albans Cathedral since 2022. Last year, more than 500,000 people tuned in to watch the falcons, which are one of five breeding pairs in Hertfordshire, via a webcam available on the cathedral’s website. Lea Ellis, engagement manager at Herts and Middlesex Trust, said the interest from the public showed the birds had “truly captured hearts”. (via BBC)

11. And there just happened to be an article on the Cornell Lab’s Bird Cams which have reached literally millions of viewers worldwide: With a click of the mouse, people can experience the everyday lives of birds in real time through live cameras run by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Launched in 2012, the Cornell Lab Bird Cams have reached millions of viewers around the world, bringing people closer to nature in ways never before possible. The bird cams project operates between five to twelve cameras all year round. Some cameras focus on feeders, while others follow individual birds through an entire breeding season, allowing viewers to witness eggs hatch and chicks grow. Charles Eldermire, live media lead producer at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, led the project when it started in 2012. He explained that unlike documentaries, live cameras give people access to a more authentic experience with birds. (via Cornell Sun)

12. The Atlantic has a nice photo spread (might be paywalled): Recent images of some of our fine feathered friends at work and at play in the warming Northern Hemisphere. (via The Atlantic)

13. From Poland, “dobra wiadomosc” (good news) for injured birds: When a male bullfinch smashed into Marcin Jarzębski’s apartment window, he took it in but realized it needed expert treatment. So the next morning he brought it to Warsaw’s new emergency room for wild birds. He prepared a shoebox for the tiny, plump bird with a black head, gray back and reddish chest feathers. Then he took it as one of the first patients to the new drop-off center for sick and injured birds at the entrance of the Warsaw Zoo. “The bird stayed with us overnight, but unfortunately it probably has a broken wing so we brought it to the bird hospital,” Jarzębski said. The 24/7 emergency room in the Polish capital is actually a system of automated metal containers — something like a parcel room — where the containers can keep the birds warm in winter. The boxes send an immediate signal to the bird hospital just a few meters away, where veterinarians bring the birds for diagnosing and treatment. (via AP News)

By Hap Ellis, Snowy Owl and Northern Harrier- Parker River NWR, Newburyport, MA.

14. For the arborist (and birder) in you: The cornelian cherry or cornus mas isn’t a cherry tree at all, but rather, in the dogwood family. This low-maintenance tree grows up to be relatively small in stature but packs a four-season punch, with yellow flowers in early spring, bright red summer berries and attractive foliage and bark in fall and winter. The tree is native to regions like Ukraine, Turkey and Georgia and is so-named possibly due to the berries’ resemblance to carnelian gemstones. When the tree’s berries form, birds and another animals (including humans!) can enjoy the sour, pitted fruits. In its native regions, the cornelian cherry is grown commercially for its fruit to be used for medicinal purposes, preserves and juices. The fruits can also be salted and pickled like olives. In summer, the tree produces cherry-like fruits, which the birds usually get first. (via Vermont Public Radio)

15. Daily Kos reports on early Spring migration from the Sacramento Valley: Clear skies and warm weather convinced me that it was a perfect day to visit Colusa National Wildlife Refuge. When I visited Colusa last year the ponds held thousands of Northern Pintails, Shovelors, Widgeons, Snow Geese and White Fronted Geese. The warm weather triggered the migration. While there were some birds at Colusa, the bulk of them have already headed to their summer home. Not a single Pintail could be seen in the refuge. The first pond held dozens of White-Fronted Geese, but only a handful of Northern Shovelors and about a dozen Black-Necked Stilts. Overhead, flocks of White-Fronted Geese headed north bypassing the NWR. Every so often, some of the geese came down for a landing to rest and fuel up before continuing their journey. (via Daily Kos)

16. Finally, 8.257 species, 1.14 million birders, 216 countries - check out the remarkable results from The Cornell Lab’s Great Backyard Bird Count: Few things are as inspiring as watching birds. They busily navigate their daily lives: singing, flocking, calling, feeding, socializing, and surviving. Closely rivaling the wonderment of birds are birders themselves. Birders from all corners of the world came together for the Great Backyard Bird Count, defying the barriers that seek to divide us in our quest to celebrate birds and the natural world. Like nothing else, birds are a unifying force of amazement. Together we found 8,257 species which is 179 more than in 2025. Thank you for participating in GBBC. Please enjoy the impressive results below, knowing you were an important part of this growing wave of bird-enthusiasm. (via BirdCount)

Bird Videos of the Week

Video by Chris Hester, Sandhill Cranes.

Cornell Live Bird Cam - Red-winged Blackbirds are a harbinger of spring around Sapsucker Woods in Ithaca, New York.

Cornell Live Bird Cam - It's an early morning crayfish delivery at the entrance to the Barred Owl’s nest box!

2. Beautiful photos from Audubon: Birds rarely stay still. A sudden wingbeat, a fleeting interaction, or a flash of color can disappear in seconds. Capturing those moments requires patience, careful observation, and a deep connection with the natural world. In recognition of International Women’s Day, we celebrate the photographers who, through their lenses, have revealed the beauty, behavior, and complexity of birds across diverse ecosystems. Their images transform fleeting moments into visual stories that invite us to look more closely at the natural world. Their photographs go beyond aesthetics. They help us understand bird behavior, the habitats birds depend on, and the challenges they face on a constantly changing planet. In doing so, photography becomes a powerful tool for education, science, and conservation. (via Audubon Americas)

By Hap Ellis, Purple Gallinule - Green Cay Nature Center & Wetlands, Boynton Beach, FL.

3. It's all about "...integrat(ing) you into their 'flock'": In 1995, a California parakeet earned the Guinness World Record for having the largest human vocabulary among birds. “Puck the Budgie” had learned an astounding 1,728 words before passing away at the young age of five in late 1994. Puck even formed original phrases, such as “that’s what it’s all about” and “I love everyone,” showcasing a high cognitive ability that makes these tiny avians some of the smartest birds that you can keep as pets. But while birds like Puck could chat away in words we can understand, others tweet, quack, cheep, and trill to communicate. Why do some birds talk like humans, and others converse in languages all their own? We turned to Timothy Wright, an associate professor of biology at New Mexico State University whose research focuses on the function and evolution of vocal communication in parrots, to find out. (via Popular Science)

4. Audubon on the importance of the Farm, Food and National Security Act of 2026 (otherwise known as "The Farm Bill"): As the U.S. House Committee on Agriculture advances the Farm, Food, and National Security Act of 2026 (Farm Bill), it is worth remembering that the legislation represents the nation’s largest investment in voluntary conservation on private lands. That makes it a crucial tool for addressing habitat loss and helping birds recover. But many conservation incentive programs for farmers, ranchers, and foresters are still not strong enough to meet growing demand. A modernized Farm Bill can address this head on, by improving existing programs, formalizing others, and reducing barriers for working landowners. (via Audubon)

5. One look at six "essential" books about birds: A few years ago, more or less on a whim, I started following a group of scientists who were studying a small seabird on an island off the coast of Washington State. The bird, called the rhinoceros auklet, was gray and had a funny little horn sprouting from the base of its bill—hence its common name. I loved the way their story, so seemingly modest, joined with other stories about climate change, the fate of the world’s oceans, and the history of land, people, colonial power, and Indigenous resilience. People have been writing about birds for almost as long as they have been writing anything. One anonymous Old English poet, for example, called the sea “the gannet’s bath” (referring to the large expert divers of the North Atlantic), and after reading that I have not looked at it in any other way. While working on my auklet tale, Seabirds as Sentinels, I turned to these essential books about birds. (via LitHub)

6. The importance of prairie dogs (!) to our grassland birds: Last fall, I fell in love with prairie dogs on the American Prairie in Montana even though the hype for America’s Great Plains pointed me to bison. As impressive as North America’s largest land mammal is, the pipsqueak of the prairie piqued my interest and stole my heart, and I’m not the only one. Andy Boyce arrived on the American Prairie in 2018 as one of the Smithsonian’s first folks hired onto their Great Plains Science Program. Like me, he arrived in Montana thinking of bison. Boyce is a research ecologist with Smithsonian’s National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute. He published papers on interactions between bison and birds but soon gravitated to the black-tailed prairie dog. Boyce likes an underdog and said, “I was just incredulous at how important prairie dogs were, while simultaneously being one of the most persecuted animals on the Great Plains.” (via Creators)

By Hap Ellis, Young Anhinga - Green Cay Nature Center & Wetlands, Boynton Beach, FL.

7. An interesting look at birding Vietnam (spoiler alert - not that many species): Subash and I were in shock. We had spent two days cruising Vietnam’s Ha Long Bay aboard a small ship and overnighting among 2,000 immense limestone towers eroded by the sea. The bay is designated a UNESCO World Heritage site for its “marine-invaded tower karst” geography and its diversity of wildlife. Yet my fellow traveler and I had logged just five black kites, graceful raptors of Southeast Asia. Amazingly, there wasn’t a gull or cormorant in sight. While our tour was not a nature-focused trip, we took every opportunity to look for birds in each likely spot, carrying binoculars and using the Merlin app to identify unfamiliar birds. We had noted just 25 species, well below expectations. (via Harpswell Naturalist)

8. From Down Under - "100,000 people have tuned in" - you can too: On an island in New Zealand’s remote south, one of the world’s strangest and rarest parrots – the kākāpō – is caring for her tiny chick as fans from across the globe watch on. Through the black and white lens of a hidden camera, a fluffy orb with a kazoo-like squeak jostles for food from its mother’s beak. The mother, Rakiura, is attentive – scooping her chick under her large green wings, fending off an intruding bird, and periodically tidying her nest. Since New Zealand’s Department of Conservation launched its live stream in mid-January, more than 100,000 people have tuned in to watch Rakiura during breeding season. (via The Guardian)

9. Insights on climate effects on migration from Montana: Have you had any unexpected bird sightings this winter? Maybe you saw birds in unexpected places or times. Or maybe birds you expected never showed up. You’re not alone. Bird researchers – and an observant listener – have noticed, too. That listener wants to know: What do we know about how climate change is impacting birds, both in and out of Montana? (via Montana Public Radio)

10. Speaking of migration - "They will get here by hook or by crook." Migration and war in the Middle East: The spring migration is entering its peak, with millions of birds expected to arrive in Israel to nest and breed despite incoming missile fire from Iran, according to the Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael-Jewish National Fund’s chief ornithologist. Yaron Charka explained that in spring, “the birds rush to get to their nesting sites to secure the best spots.” Timing is everything, he continued, because the chicks have to hatch when food supply is at its peak. While research from 2022 indicated that greater spotted eagles avoided danger over Ukraine during the war, Charka said detours in Israel caused by the ongoing war with Iran would likely be short — but could leave the birds exhausted and not in the best state to find a partner and lay eggs. (via Times of Israel)

By Hap Ellis, Boat-tailed Grackle - Green Cay Nature Center & Wetlands, Boynton Beach, FL.

11. What it takes - restoring life to a section of the Colorado River that flows through the Cocopah reservation in SW Arizona: Where Arizona, California and the Republic of Mexico meet, the lower Colorado River transitions into its delta and dries up before finding its way to the Gulf of California as it had done a century ago. It is here that a new habitat restoration effort is taking shape on the Cocopah Indian Tribe’s Reservation— to bring back the native vegetation and wildlife that once thrived along this vital desert waterway. This section of the Colorado River underwent profound changes over the past century due to the dams and diversions that significantly altered the river’s flow. For the Cocopah people with ancestral ties to the Colorado River since time immemorial, these changes have not only impacted the landscape, but also their culture and ability to sustain their traditional ways of life. (via Audubon)

12. Preaching to the choir - we've birded this "nirvana": We’re not just singing the warbler’s praise when we say this: Kim Kaufman gets excited about birds. The longtime executive director of Ohio’s largest birding group, the Black Swamp Bird Observatory, couldn’t suppress her enthusiasm for the Biggest Week in American Birding and other things bird-related when she delivered her keynote luncheon speech Monday to the Rotary Club of Toledo. The event was in the Huntington Center Aquarium. Ms. Kaufman began her talk by calling northwest Ohio “the gateway to birding nirvana,” reaping praise particularly upon the world-renowned Magee Marsh Wildlife Area in Ottawa County. She said her group strives to encourage more youths to explore birding and nature in general. (via Toledo Blade)

13. Then there is the "Serengeti of the South"... Birding tips for the Lone Star State: Texas has plenty of famous wildlife stops, but the Great Texas Birding Trail is at its best when you treat it like a biodiversity puzzle instead of a checklist. You are not just searching for a single rare bird; you are seeking the habitat features that attract dozens of species to the same area, often within a short walk from your car. That is why a “Biodiversity Deep-Dive” works so well in two places that feel completely different on the map. At Brazos Bend State Park, freshwater lakes and bottomland hardwoods stack on top of each other, which is exactly how you get dense wildlife viewing in a relatively compact space. (via A-Z Animals)

By Hap Ellis, Green Heron- Green Cay Nature Center & Wetlands, Boynton Beach, FL.

14. This week's Rare Bird Alert - Red-flanked Bluetail: Barbara Saffir clipped a camouflage vest around her chest, hung her heavy, long-lens camera and binoculars around her neck, and stepped in her knee-high, red galoshes through wet leaves and mud under a dense early morningfog on the edge of the Potomac River. The red-flanked bluetail has appeared at a park near the Potomac River, marking only the second time the species has been seen east of the Rockies. (via The Washington Post)

* Check out the bluetail's normal range: Red-flanked Bluetail - Tarsiger cyanurus - Birds of the World.

15. From the Las Vegas - what was this guy thinking?: A Canadian tourist accused of stealing and torturing a flamingo at a Las Vegas Strip hotel must remain in the area as his criminal proceedings play out, a judge said Monday. Mitchell Fairbarn, 33, of Ontario, Canada, faces four counts of felony animal abuse for allegedly injuring a bird at the Flamingo Las Vegas Hotel & Casino on March 3. Police reviewed surveillance footage, which they said showed Fairbarn entering the bird habitat and grabbing a bird named “Peachy,” documents said. Fairbarn also allegedly injured other animals in the process, including “pinning down” a second bird and “not letting it escape.” The video then shows Fairbarn returning to a hotel room with the animal, police said. Fairbarn allegedly admitted to police that he trespassed into the bird habitat after seeing a flamingo in distress. He told police he “popped” the bird’s wing into place. (via ABC News 8 Now)

16. And finally, let's wind up with chewinks, snowflakes and titlarks - A fun (and quick) look at some of the old bird names from a 1919 Bird Guide: Many months ago, or maybe it was years at this point, I promised to do a column on old bird names. Quite frankly, I forgot about it and never got around to doing the column. I can’t even remember what inspired me to consider such a column, but I must have been writing about a bird with a relatively new name, and thought it would be a good idea to look at other somewhat recent bird name changes. Perhaps I wrote about a long-tailed duck and recalled the old name of oldsquaw. Regardless of the impetus, here’s that column I promised so long ago. (via Keene Sentinel)

Bird Videos of the Week

Video by WBZ News Boston, “Adorable owl rescued from driveway in Medford, MA”

Cornell Live Bird Cam - Great Horned Owls.

Cornell Live Bird Cam - Pine Grosbeaks and Redpolls arrive together at the Ontario FeederWatch Cam.

2. Smoke - Yet another threat to grassland birds: On a hazy day in June 2023, doctoral students Trifosa Simamora and Timothy Boycott noticed that the birds at their field site had gone quiet. Now in a study published Feb. 19 in Biological Conservation, they show that the culprit was smoke from that summer’s record-breaking Canadian wildfires. The smoke dampened the songs and vocalizations of multiple species, with a particularly negative effect on already imperiled grassland birds and birds with ranges specific to the eastern U.S. The reduced communication came at an important time in the birds’ breeding cycle, when vocalizations attract mates and establish territories. (via Cornell Chronicle)

By Hap Ellis, Crested Caracara - Celery Fields, Sarasota, FL.

3. Kakapos and the rimu tree: Not all superfoods are indeed super, but one just might help save a critically endangered parrot species that can be found only in New Zealand: the kakapo. The peculiar birds are mating at a record pace this year, making the most of one of the best bumper crops in decades of the fruit from coniferous rimu trees, according to scientists. The fruit, which resembles bright red berries, is rich in calcium and vitamin D, providing what researchers described as critical nourishment to chicks. So far this year, 52 chicks have hatched on several sanctuary islands off the country’s South Island, said Andrew Digby, a scientist and kakapo specialist at New Zealand’s Department of Conservation. (via The New York Times)

4. "Not alright" - North American Breeding Bird Survey results: Orange, black, blue, green, brown, red. Birds are like the artist Jackson Pollock splashing color on our daily tapestry. But the rainbow of colors birds bring to our lives is dimming. A new study shows that despite conservation efforts, birds are continuing to decline. Imagine surveying a 24.5 mile route as part of a Breeding Bird Survey. You stop every half mile, get out and listen intently for three minutes. You count and note every bird you see or hear within a quarter mile radius. If you were doing this survey in 1987, you may have seen around 2,000 birds during the course of such a survey. Now, let’s say you go back and run the same survey in 2021, 17 years later. (via Environment America)

* Another take here: Billions fewer birds are flying through North American skies than decades ago and their numbers are shrinking ever faster, mostly due to the combination of intensive agriculture and warming temperatures. Nearly half of the 261 species studied showed losses important enough to be statistically significant, and more than half of those in decline have seen losses accelerate since 1987. The study is the first to look at trends in their decrease, where they are shrinking the most and what the declines are connected to, rather than total population. (via Los Angeles Times)

5. A shout out for winter waterfowl: I’ll explain the unusual formation in the title photo in a bit. But first, some background on the site and weather. It was Valentine’s Day, or as we called it when I was a kid, St. Valentine’s Day. Two of my BBFs (Best Birding Friends) went to Port Huron with me, hoping to enjoy the end of the arctic freeze and see some good winter waterfowl. As usual for a Port Huron run, we started at the point furthest north and worked our way south. In case anyone missed WordsandBirds’ winter waterfowl story about Red-throated Loons from last week, check it out. Even though we’re a couple thousand miles apart, waterfowl birding makes winter something to look forward to for both areas. (via Daily Kos)

6. Meet the "bird wizard" - Philip Unitt, Curator of Birds and Mammals at the San Diego Natural History Museum: Phil Unitt can tell you which bird is flying overhead anywhere in San Diego just using his ears. Half a century working at the San Diego Natural History Museum will do that to a man. Unitt began volunteering for the museum at age 17 and never left, eventually earning the department’s top role as curator of birds and mammals and chair of ornithology. He has a message for generations choosing smartphone over their brain: Your AI-powered birdsong identifier, like Merlin ID, isn’t always correct, Unitt said with a laugh. (via Vice of San Diego)

By Hap Ellis, (The illusive) Sora - Celery Fields, Sarasota, FL.

7. Should have been the Florida Scrub-Jay: As if flamingos weren’t showy enough, the American flamingo (Phoenicopterus ruber) has officially been elevated to a new celebrity status. The Florida House of Representatives and Senate have designated the species as Florida’s official state bird. The long-legged American flamingo is one of the largest flamingo species in the world, and gets its iconic cotton-candy pink hue from a pigment in its food. The birds live on South America’s northern coast and in the Caribbean. In the United States, they only exist naturally in Florida. The move replaces the mockingbird, or northern mockingbird (Mimus polyglottos) as the official state bird. The bill also designates the Florida scrub-jay (Aphelocoma coerulescens) as Florida’s official state songbird. Clearly, those involved in the two decisions were going for color. This songbird endemic to Florida is starkly blue. (via Popular Science)

8. From Down Under, targeted "song tutoring" restores a lost traditional song: Scientists from The Australian National University (ANU) and the Taronga Conservation Society Australia have successfully restored the lost traditional song of one of Australia’s most endangered birds, offering new hope for the survival of the critically endangered regent honeyeater. The new study reveals how targeted “song tutoring” at Taronga Zoo in Sydney and Taronga Western Plains Zoo in Dubbo has revived a disappearing cultural trait vital to the species’s survival. The findings arepublished in the journal Scientific Reports. (via Australian National University)

9. "Trait-mediated effects of anthropogenic noise on bird behavior": Expanding human noise is not just background sound, it’s disturbing the peace of some bird habitats and altering their behaviors. Noise pollution is widespread and affects birds across North America. Many studies have shown that human-made noise affects birds. What hasn’t been clear is how bird species’ lifestyles shape their responses. Researchers performed a global analysis of 160 studies across six continents to examine how noise pollution affects bird behavior, growth, physiology and reproduction, based on their traits. The study found that noise pollution reduces reproduction, increases aggression, communication and foraging. (via Wildlife)

10. New study finds rainfall plays "a powerful role" in shaping bird populations: Scientists have long focused on rising temperatures to understand how climate change is reshaping the natural world. But there’s a critical blind spot in that picture: rain. A new global study reveals precipitation has been largely overlooked in studies of how climate change impacts birds, even though it can be just as influential as temperature.The findings, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, show rainfall patterns play a powerful role in shaping bird populations, but also reveal how those effects unfold and which species are most vulnerable as precipitation becomes more erratic in a warming world. (via Phys Org)

By Hap Ellis, Sandhill Cranes - Celery Fields, Sarasota, FL.

11. The "inherent value of existence": In Mandarin, there’s a particular character: 青 (“qing”). The word generally is translated to blue or green. It’s not as commonly used nowadays, as there are also separate words for blue and green, but I always think about it whenever people can’tagree on if something is blue or green. I bring this up because it reminds me of a bird that we’re going to discuss today. Odds are good that you’ve seen a blue jay. And if you’ve been to southern Texas, you might have even spotted a green jay before. (If you’re not familiar, look up a green jay; I promise whatever you’re picturing is not the same as the real thing.) But how about a jay that’s both? (via Daily Campus)

12. A second - and concerning - look at the 2021 winter storms in Texas: The ‘Great Texas Freeze’ of 2021 wiped out up to a quarter of the state’s much-loved purple martin population, a study in Nature Ecology and Evolution has found. Now, conservationists worry it could take decades for the birds to recover, and fear for the repercussions of future extreme weather events. For nine days in February 2021, two back-to-back deep freezes gripped the Gulf Coast, bringing record-low temperatures, ice and snow across Texas. Millions of homes lost power. More than 200 people died. The weather was not kind to wildlife either and people were concerned for the purple martins, North America’s largest species of swallow. The migratory birds are one of the earliest arriving birds to the US Gulf Coast each year, typically appearing in January and February. To find out how they were faring, researchers harnessed the power of citizen science. (via Discover Wildlife)

13. News from the Amazon - Not one species but five, and two are completely new to science: Scientists have discovered that a widely recognized Amazonian antbird is not one, but five distinct species – including two completely new to science. This revelation of hidden biodiversity was achieved by integrating artificial intelligence, vocal analysis, and traditional museum work, demonstrating how cutting-edge technology can transform our understanding of life in Earth’s richest ecosystems. The study was conducted by Vagner Cavarzere and his master’s student Enrico L. Breviglieri from São Paulo State University (UNESP), Brazil, together with curator Luis F. Silveira of the University of São Paulo Museum of Zoology, and was published in the open-access journal Vertebrate Zoology. (via Eureka Alert)

(Photos from Friends) By Elizabeth Rand - Australian Ibis - Syndey NSW.

14. Capturing the silent travelers: Millions of birds invisibly migrate through the night sky each autumn, most flying in near silence toward their wintering grounds. Now, scientists have developed a way to see and identify many of those birds for the first time. In a study published in Ornithology, researchers describe how they used thermal imaging optics, flashlights, and high-speed photography to detect and photograph birds in flight after dark. The technique allowed scientists to identify low-flying species across three fall seasons in Cape May, New Jersey—including thousands that would have gone undetected by other monitoring tools. (via Cornell University)

15. Yes it is! Spring is in the air: Brilliant, yellow daffodils, pink rhododendrons, camelias and skunk cabbage are all making their presence known and are giving us the happy message that spring is virtually here. Robins are everywhere and this too lets us in on the nearness of spring. Northern flickers are chasing each other from branch to branch and tree to tree. Wings are flapping and heads are held high in the air, all in the name of spring and the breeding season. A trip to Skamokawa to visit a friend was full of hints of spring’s arrival. (via Chinook Obeserver)

16. If a Pokémon-style app is what it takes, then...: Out of all the hobbies I’ve encountered over my life, birdwatching has felt the most tedious. Yes, there are some interesting birds in the wild, but successfully identifying a subspecies of sparrow has never excited me in the way it does others. Perhaps this is all thanks to my dopamine-addicted Gen Z brain, as apparently all I needed was the right kind of gamification to go from thinking “Yep, that’s a bird,” to “Oh my god! Another Blue Tit!” without the faintest hint of sarcasm. The app that changed my mind on birdwatching is Birdex, which marries the mundanity of birdwatching with the irrational thrill of collecting Pokémon. It’s not just another free mobile game; it forced me to identify birds instead of relying on an algorithm. It turns out that yes, education is fun. (via Android Police)

17. Let's finish with a fun report on birding our national parks from a data analyst turned citizen scientist: Everything about birds fascinates me. I’m not an ornithologist; in fact, I’m a data analyst with a PhD in psychology with no background in biology, ecology, or any fieldwork. Lucky for me, birds are everywhere and the Newman Exploration Travel (NEXT) Fund allowed me to find them in places that they may someday disappear from, understand efforts to educate and engage the public on birds, and learn valuable field skills that I plan to take into my continuing volunteer work to save the world—or, at least, save some birds and make some graphs. (via WashU)

Bird Videos of the Week

Video by CBS Evening News, “Why flamingos are returning to Florida”.

Cornell Live Bird Cam - Close-ups of several tropical species visiting the Panama Fruit Feeder Cam.

Cornell Live Bird Cam - Common Ravens.

2. The Musician Wren and the mystery of vanishing birds: The lilting song of the musician wren once commonly heralded sunrise in the central Amazon jungle. But last October it was a rare wonder when the flute-like melody cut through the dawn gloom. “Did you hear that?” whispered Stefano Avilla, an ornithologist and Federal University of Amazonas (UFAM) Ph.D. student. “Good ear,” said Jared Wolfe, a Michigan Technological University wildlife ecologist. “This bird is in rapid decline. You don’t hear it very often.” The wren’s appearance was a welcome moment of musical delight in an otherwise grim time. Near the Brazilian city of Manaus and in other tropical forests across the Americas, birds are vanishing from surprising places—expanses of forest untouched by fires, chainsaws, or bulldozers. Many of the species are ones that spend their entire lives in a single patch of trees. This isn’t a case of migratory birds vulnerable to habitat loss as they hopscotch across continents. (via Science)

* For those interested, more on the Musician Wren: Musician Wren - Cyphorhinus arada - via Birds of the World)

By Hap Ellis, American White Pelican - Pelico Preserve, Bradenton, FL.

3. Not sure you would have guessed this - but then "radar flips the question": Migratory birds depend on cities for rest and refueling more than previously thought – presenting risks for the birds and opportunities for conservation,new research from Colorado State University shows. Metropolitan areas – those with 50,000 or more residents – account for nearly half of stopover locations for migrating birds, according to research published in the journal Nature Cities. That means cities play a far greater role in bird migration than scientists once thought. The finding is significant because migratory birds face steep population declines, and migration is one of the most dangerous periods of their lives. (via Colorado State University)

4. The "language of the forest" paired with cutting-edge AI in Hawaii: High in the misty forests of Mauna Loa, a high-tech acoustic network is recording the intricate calls of some of the world’s most endangered species — Hawaiʻi native forest birds. For 21 years, UH Hilo Biology professor Patrick “Pat” Hart, PhD, has dedicated his career to studying these rare and complex vocalizations. For the first time, technological advances in software and hardware have enabled him to capture and quickly process these unique soundscapes in an effort to protect a vanishing species. (via University of Hawaii Hilo)

5. Living the high sugar life (and check out the beautiful New Holland Honeyeater pic): To eat a sugar-filled diet, birds had to evolve some sweet genetic tricks. Birds that feed on nectar and fruits have important variants in genes that control metabolism, fat processing and even blood pressure. Findings published February 26 in Science show how different lineages of birds converged on similar genetic workarounds to let them live the high sugar life. Several groups of birds have evolved to eat these sickeningly sweet diets, including parrots, hummingbirds, honeyeaters and sunbirds. “If [humans] are eating a lot of sugar, then a lot of bad things are happening to us: metabolic syndrome, obesity, type 2 diabetes,” says Ekaterina Osipova, a genomicist at Harvard University. “At the same time, there are birds that naturally solve this problem. They’re feeding on a lot of sugar, but nothing bad happens to them.” (via Science News)

6. Concerning - no safe place to molt for these penguins?: Scientists have discovered that an annual event when Emperor penguins completely shed and regrow their feathers is putting the birds in peril as Antarctica is transformed by a warming world. Each year the birds must stay on platforms of floating ice for long enough to replace weather-beaten feathers with new, waterproof coats. But in 2022-24 Antarctic sea ice shrank significantly, largely down to climate change, depriving the birds of safe places to moult. Now scientists who track the animals using satellite pictures can no longer find most of the birds. They fear that thousands of penguins may have frozen in Antarctica’s icy waters. (via BBC)

By Hap Ellis, Tricolored Heron - Pelico Preserve, Bradenton, FL.

7. Beachgoers, boaters and dog walkers get ready! That time of the year is right around the corner: The beach bird nesting season has begun along Florida’s coasts. Spring and summer mark critical times of year for five vulnerable species, which must avoid human disturbance, storms, and predators to raise their babies successfully. Sea and shorebirds lay their eggs right on the sand. They are scared of people and dogs and will take flight whenever boaters, beachgoers, or dogs approach too closely. Repeated human disturbance often causes adult birds to abandon the nesting area, sometimes even leaving eggs and chicks behind. To limit the amount of human disturbance to nesting birds, Audubon staff close off important nesting areas to people while the state-Threatened birds, such as Least Terns, American Oystercatchers, Black Skimmers, Wilson’s Plovers, and Snowy Plovers, raise their families. (via Auduon)

8. Not many things can unite veterinary medicine and aerospace engineering: An unassuming metal barn erected recently at the southern edge of the University of California, Davis campus houses some advanced video technology for a uniquely UC Davis project. Leveraging UC Davis’ historic strengths in veterinary medicine and engineering, the Center for Animal Flight and Innovation is the only facility of its kind in the United States and one of very few in the world capable of capturing images of birds in flight in exquisite detail. It will use state-of-the-art technology to get new insights into how birds — specifically, hawks and other raptors — maneuver in the air. Some raptors are among the fastest birds in flight; many have a great ability to maneuver in tight spaces or around obstacles to track and seize prey. Understanding how the birds perform these feats could lead to improvements in uncrewed aerial vehicles, also known as UAVs or drones, as well as in understanding how to treat and rehabilitate injured birds. (via UC Davis)

9. A bird friendly redesign for this Dallas convention center: Environmental advocates in Dallas are celebrating a successful campaign to make the new convention center safer for migratory birds. Millions of birds nationwide are killed each year from colliding into buildings as they make their seasonal migration, according to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Several thousand of those deaths happen in North Texas, which is a major route on the birds’ migration path. This week the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center, which is currently undergoing a $3.7 billion renovation, unveiled its plans to save bird lives through its new design. The convention center’s website reads. “The design prioritizes environmental stewardship by using bird-friendly glass with subtle visible patterns that birds can see, reducing collisions while preserving natural light and transparency for the community.” (via KERA News)

By Hap Ellis, Osprey - Longboat Key, FL.

10. Seabirds and bomb cyclones: There was the hype. There was the footage of swirling, blowing snow, of waves piling up and spilling across oceanside streets. Brave weather people, geared up and giddy with anticipation, ignored their own advice and reported from the frontlines of Winter Storm Hernando, aka, the “bomb cyclone.” Whether or not it was the bomb, or instead, more or less bombed, may have depended upon where you live. For seabirds wintering off Maine’s coast, the terms used to describe the storm meant nothing; they just had to endure it. Wind speeds were reported to have reached 75 mph, and the marine forecast mentioned 15–18-foot seas. What do birds out on the open ocean experience when it’s like this? (via Nature Resources Council of Maine)

11. Elevation matters says this study: Every year, billions of birds undertake extraordinary migrations, crossing vast deserts and open seas with no place to stop, feed, or rest. A new international study published in iScience by a consortium of researchers from Tour du Valat, CEFE/CNRS, Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle and Swiss Ornithological Institute reveals that small migratory birds adjust how high they fly over these ecological barriers, and that their strategies depend on wing morphology and plumage color. Using miniature multi-sensor tracking devices, researchers tracked 17 species of small migratory birds as they crossed two major barriers on their journey between Europe and sub-Saharan Africa: the Sahara Desert and large marine areas such as the Mediterranean Sea and the Bay of Biscay. The results show striking differences in flight behavior. (via Tour Du Valat)

12. Maybe not a good idea - well known birder Kenn Kaufman on befriending crows: Scroll long enough in the bird-related corners of social media, and eventually, you’re bound to stumble on a corvid. Crows, jays, ravens, and magpies are simply too fascinating for humans to ignore. Their intelligence, complex bonds, and almost humanlike humor have captivated us for centuries. With that in mind, whether for internet points or out of the kindness of their hearts, humans often try to bond with wild crows. Depending on how they go about it, such “friendships” aren’t good for the birds. Here’s what birding experts Kenn and Kimberly Kaufman have to say about training or befriending crows… and how to appreciate the birds safely. (via Birds and Blooms)

(Photos From Friends) By Cindy Rand, Common Raven - Invermere, BC, Canada.

13. These farmers turn to a different kind of falcon: Canadian-made drones masquerading as peregrine falcons are being used to watch over Australian fruit and almond orchards. The drones come in fixed-wing and flapping wing models that rely on bio-mimicry technology to keep smaller birds away from the fruit and nut trees. That means they look and behave as a predator would, to scare off species such as corellas or cockatoos. With most of Victoria recording minimal rainfall over the past year, birds have been looking to agricultural crops for food. AERIUM Analytics president Jordan Cicoria said field-testing of the drone in Victoria and South Australia showed that the machines can cope with the Australian heat. (via ABC News)

14. A BNI book reference for the readers lucky enough to bird Oregon's Crater Lake National Park: Crater Lake National Park’s high-elevation, from 6,000 to more than 8,000 feet, creates difficult conditions for birds, bringing extreme cold, late springs and limited food sources. Stewart Janes, author of “Birds of Crater Lake National Park: A Natural History and Guide,” said it can be a hostile environment for avian life. Janes’ book is the first field guide dedicated to Crater Lake’s birds in nearly 50 years and offers a detailed look at species adapted to the park’s demanding ecosystem. Several species have evolved distinct survival tactics. The Clark’s nutcracker caches seeds in as many as 10,000 locations, allowing the bird to retrieve food during long winters. (via Jefferson Public Radio)

15. And finally, 16,596 KBAs! What is a KBA you ask? Well, just the "the most significant places for biodiversity on the planet": A new paper coauthored by staff members from American Bird Conservancy (ABC) and published in Biological Reviews reveals that the Key Biodiversity Areas (KBA) network has grown to be the most comprehensive global map of critical biodiversity sites since the framework was formalized in 2016. There are currently 16,596 KBAs covering more than 13.7 million square miles (22.1 million square kilometers). KBAs represent the most significant places for biodiversity on the planet, which collectively support more than 18,000 species. (via ABC Birds)

Bird Videos of the Week

Video by Kah-Wai Lin, “The Secretes of Atlantic Puffins”.

Cornell Live Bird Cam - Northern Royal Albatross (named WYL).

Cornell Live Bird Cam - White-necked Jacobins.