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19 Articles

More to read on BirdWatchingDaily.com

CONSERVATION The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service recently said it will protect the California Spotted Owl under the Endangered Species Act. The move comes after more than two decades of advocacy by environmental groups to protect the owl and its habitat. SCIENCE Bald Eagles and dairy farmers exist in a mutually beneficial relationship in parts of northwestern Washington state. A new study reports that as climate change has affected eagles’ traditional winter diet of salmon carcasses, the birds have shifted to finding food on farms. Subscribe to our newsletter: birdwatchingdaily.com/newsletter Become a member of BirdWatching: birdwatchingdaily.com/memberships Follow, like, and share! FACEBOOK: BirdWatchingMagazine INSTAGRAM: @birdwatchingmagazine TWITTER: @BirdWatchDaily FLICKR: BirdWatching group photo pool…

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Keep looking up!

THIS ISSUE MARKS THE 135TH AND FINAL EDITION of Birder’s World/BirdWatching that I had a hand in creating. I joined the editorial staff in late 2000, moved with it when Madavor Media purchased the magazine in 2012, and became editor in 2017. This job has been an absolute privilege and honor, and I hope that our work has helped you, our reader, enjoy, attract, find, identify, and understand birds more than you would have without this publication. I’m indebted to our late founding editor and publisher, Eldon Greij. Without his passion for birds and for educating the birdwatching community, none of this would have been possible. I miss his wisdom and good cheer. Eldon sold the magazine in the late 1990s to Kalmbach Publishing in Wisconsin, and I’m grateful to…

Keep looking up!

New study: Bird and bat deaths at wind turbines

SCIENCE • CONSERVATION • NEWS • EVENTS • LETTERS A study recently published in PLOS ONE collected data from 248 wind turbine facilities — across the United States — to examine bird and bat fatalities. Conducted by the Renewable Energy Wildlife Institute, the authors analyzed daily carcass counts between 2009 and 2021 for nearly 4000 birds and more than 10,00 bats killed at turbine sites. “First and foremost, this study helps us understand why certain species of birds and bats are more likely to collide with wind turbines than others,” said John Lloyd, the lead author. “But it also highlights the power of collaborative research — our analysis, and the patterns that it uncovered, was only possible because we could draw on data from hundreds of different studies conducted across…

New study: Bird and bat deaths at wind turbines

CRC hosts emergency efforts to help save California Condors

Recently the Carolina Raptor Center (CRC) became home to 28 Black Vultures that are part of an emergency use vaccine authorization, a program dedicated to protecting endangered California Condors from Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI). The emergency use authorization was approved by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) as part of a nation-wide collaborative study and initiated after at least 17 condors – confirmed positive for HPAI — died in March and April, in Arizona. CRC was chosen as the host for this trial because of its unique facilities and expertise in the field of raptor rehabilitation and care. “Rescuing and rehabilitating up to 1,000 injured and sick raptors every year requires a team of expert staff as well as large holding facilities to care for birds as they recover,”…

CRC hosts emergency efforts to help save California Condors

Bird city network launches

American Bird Conservancy (ABC) and Environment for the Americas (EFTA) announced a partnership in June, launching the Bird City Network (birdcity.org), a bird conservation program connecting cities in North, South, Central American, and the Caribbean, in a unified effort to expand the conservation of birds. “Many people do not like what they see happening to wildlife in the world around them and would like to make a change but do not know where to begin,” said Dr. Bryan Lenz, ABC’s Bird City Network Director. “Bird City is their guide. Recognizing that local partnerships are the heart of meaningful long-term change, the Bird City model seeks to empower relevant grassroots actions where neighbors work together to improve the spaces they share.” The Bird City Network is designed as a platform to…

Bird city network launches

Hopeful Red Knots migration

The annual survey of Rufa Red Knots migrating through the Delaware Bay to Artic breeding sites in the spring totaled in the realm of 22,000, a dramatic increase from 6,680 red knots recorded in 2021. Dr. Larry Niles, an independent biologist, told the New York Times that warm ocean waters allowed for a robust spawning of horseshoe crabs, whose eggs are a key food source for the Atlantic coast subspecies. “What I think is happening is that the birds first found there were no eggs, and stayed away,” Niles said. “Then they found there were eggs and they came back. I was elated to see 22,000 birds this year.” In the 1980s and 90s, the shorebird population was, on average, in the range of 90,000 birds. The steep decline has…

Hopeful Red Knots migration

A promising sign for an endangered parakeet

This spring, more than 20 wild-hatched Gray-breasted Parakeets took flight in a private reserve in the Aratanha Mountains in Brazil — likely the first fledglings of the species in this location in decades. Gray-breasted Parakeets are small, social parrots with green bodies, white cheeks, and bright red tail feathers. While they were once widely distributed across mountain forests in eastern Brazil, their numbers dwindled beginning in the late 1800s due to deforestation and the European pet trade. By 2007, only a single viable population of less than 100 individuals remained, and the species was listed as critically endangered on the IUCN Red List. In 2009, Brazilian conservation organization Aquasis embarked on an urgent mission to save the last remaining individuals from extinction. They put up artificial nest boxes to substitute…

A promising sign for an endangered parakeet

At its own pace

LATE EVERY SUMMER and into the fall, when I’m ambling down a country road in northern Wisconsin, watching raptors at Duluth’s Hawk Ridge, birding along Lake Superior, or sitting in my backyard, I’m drawn to Cedar Waxwings. Many of them sit on bare branches rising above leafy trees. Now and then, one flutters out to snatch a flying insect but, even then, takes its time about it. Waxwing flight looks unhurried and leisurely, and the sleepy, sibilant calls (“like tiny mice snoring,” explained an ornithology professor) contribute to the Zen-like relaxation and peacefulness that wash over me whenever they’re near. Even migrating flocks appear not to rush. Individual birds continually change position, so the flock seems to swirl gently as it moseys along. As you and I get down to…

At its own pace

At home with Canadas

AS READERS OF this column probably realize, wife Linda and I spent last winter and early spring in California with her parents. Our return drive the first week in May was uneventful and spiked with birds not seen during our trip out in December — multiple Swainson’s Hawks, Scissor-tailed Flycatchers, and other gems. And while the bird riches of California’s Central Coast do not lack for abundance or charm, it was only on our first morning home that I realized that I had been deprived of the resonant two-note honk of the Canada Goose for five months. I’m not saying California is goose impoverished. Far from it. But this oh-so-common New Jersey resident bird was absent in the wine country where my in-laws reside. Here in New Jersey, they occupy…

At home with Canadas

Louisiana’s grail birds

Fifty years ago, Wood Storks and Roseate Spoonbills were uncommon in south-central and southwestern Louisiana. Yellow Rails were likely present in southwestern Louisiana but not detected. Non-migratory Whooping Cranes had been extirpated over 35 years before. Today, in the proper season, all can be encountered. The four species are ones most birders want to record on their life lists. So, why the change? The simple answer is that crawfish became a component of the region’s 460,000-plus acres of rice-growing “working wetlands.” The broader answer is that economic development sometimes can benefit birds or other wildlife. The rice-growing regions of Louisiana are proof. Over the last several decades, Wood Storks adjusted their annual post-breeding dispersal to the Lower Mississippi River’s drying swamps and marshes. The species migrated primarily from the Yucatan…

Louisiana’s grail birds

LOUISIANA’S WHOOPING CRANES

Whooping Cranes are special birds that came close to extinction in the 1940s. Now they are successfully breeding in southwestern and south-central Louisiana wetlands, and at least half of their nests are constructed in crawfish ponds. A reintroduction program began in 2011, when 10 young birds were brought to Louisiana from the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center in Maryland. Cohorts of young birds have been acclimatized to Louisiana conditions annually (except for 2020) at the White Lake Wetlands Conservation Area, which is where Whooping Cranes last nested in Louisiana in 1945. The oldest Whooping Cranes in the reintroduction program began nesting attempts several years after they were released. According to the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries (LDWF), the state’s non-migratory population stands at 81 birds (41 males, 34 females, and…

treasures in the Canopy

From my perch high in a 200-foot-tall Douglas-fir, I listen to the lone chord of a Varied Thrush sugaring upwards from the understory. Chip chip chip calls signal a flock of Red Crossbills rippling through the mid-canopy. Close by, a Pacific-slope Flycatcher whistles an uptick Hap-PY? Secured by a rope and climbing harness, I gaze over a treescape like none I’ve ever witnessed. Gray spires—the tops of living and dead trees—rise like ship masts above a sea of textured Douglas-fir, western cedar, and western hemlock. No spire is the same. Some are straight, others forked. Everything has a signature. The sky on this early August morning is the blue of a Steller’s Jay in flight. The rushing sigh of Lookout Creek breezes up on windless air. A western swallowtail butterfly…

treasures in the Canopy

birds, the amazon, and human GREED

Throughout 2016, Dutch birder Arjan Dwarshuis spotted 6,852 bird species around the world, breaking a record that Noah Strycker had set the year before for the highest Big Year tally ever. Dwarshuis published a book in 2019 about his Big Year in his native language, and now its English translation has been published in North America by Chelsea Green Publishing (paperback, $22.95). The (Big) Year That Flew By is about birds and birding and Dwarshuis’ attempts to raise awareness for critically endangered species. In addition, he writes about overcoming mental challenges, extreme physical danger, environmental degradation, and human competition. On the following pages, we present an excerpt from the book about one stop during Dwarshuis’ epic year: Alta Floresta, in central Brazil, which he visited with fellow Dutch birder Ies…

birds, the amazon, and human GREED

Welcome TO Portugal

The Iberian Peninsula (Portugal and Spain), occupying as it does the southwest corner of Europe, is a special bioregion within the continent. Its spectacular landscapes are home to some of Europe’s most varied avian communities and include several endemic species. Portugal offers a fantastic diversity of habitats and consequently of birds in a relatively small area, so that it is possible to plan visits to a variety of species-rich locations while avoiding the need to travel long distances. Mértola is a small and charming town, full of history and archaeological remains, perched along the Guadiana River, in southeast Portugal. The town is located inside the Guadiana Valley Natural Park, a protected area rich in Mediterranean habitats (holm oak and stone pine woodlands, olive tree groves, escarpments, bluffs and hills, Mediterranean…

Welcome TO Portugal

IDENTIFYING SMALL SONGBIRDS is always challenging, so any clue that helps narrow the possibilities can be valuable. One very common experience is seeing a small bird fly across an opening and then into a tree or shrub, where it is hidden by leaves. Is it just another chickadee, or is it worth following to try for a better view? The way the bird flies and the way it moves in the foliage offer some subtle but simple clues that can help answer those questions and put you on the path to identifying it more quickly. How does it fly? All small songbirds fly with alternating short bursts of rapid wingbeats and very brief glides with the wings closed against the body. This is the same pattern that gives woodpeckers and…

HOTSPOTS NEAR YOU

HORSESHOE BAY NATURE PARK HORSESHOE BAY, TEXAS 30°32'17.2"N 98°24'53.6"W While leading the design development and construction of Horseshoe Bay Nature Park, an 11-acre, community-founded park west of Austin, I discovered a love for birds. Our design team consulted with birding experts, ranging from representatives of the local Audubon chapter to amateur and professional wildlife photographers, on the placement of bird-friendly features and found their excitement and enthusiasm contagious. Horseshoe Bay Nature Park opened in 2021 and was uniquely designed to support wildlife. An observation deck stands at the center of the park and a bird blind, where visitors can spot waterfowl such as Black-bellied Whistling Ducks and Green Herons, overlooks a neighboring pond. Fallen trees and standing snags are preserved to provide habitat for cavity nesting birds like the Black-crested…

HOTSPOTS NEAR YOU

ID TIPS: Ruby-throated and Black-chinned Hummingbirds

IN MY BIRDING YOUTH IN CALIFORNIA, the second edition of Roger Peterson’s Field Guide to Western Birds (1961) was my go-to source for bird identification. But, in hindsight, hummingbird identification was in a primitive state in those days. Field identification of males was all about the color of the gorget (iridescent throat patch shown by males of most species) and a few other plumage characters. Females? Forget it. Of the female Black-chinned Hummingbird, Peterson simply said “cannot safely be told in field from female of Costa’s or Ruby-throat.” Identification of the Ruby-throated Hummingbird was easier since it was the “only eastern hummingbird.” In 1966, Chan Robbins’ Birds of North America came along, but things hadn’t advanced much. Again Ruby-throated was the “only hummingbird east of Great Plains, except Rufous which…

ID TIPS: Ruby-throated and Black-chinned Hummingbirds

COMPLEX COLORING

We delight in the glittering plumage of hummingbirds, those iridescent colors produced by the nanostructure of the feathers’ flattened barbules with tiny air pockets. But, frustratingly, the colors we perceive depend on the triangulation of the bird, light source, the observer. The apparent color of a hummer’s gorget can change with changing angles of light, often appearing all black. Rose or violet colors can look iridescent green or gold at some angles. Furthermore, individual hummingbirds may vary slightly in gorget feather nanostructure, resulting in slightly different iridescent shades – such as an “orange-throated” Ruby-throated Hummingbird. These complex colors aren’t just there to delight and befuddle us humans. Hummingbirds, like other birds, have a fourth color cone in the retina, sensitive to ultraviolet wavelengths. They can distinguish colors – particularly non-spectral…

JOE MCDONALD/SHUTTERSTOCK Black-browed Albatross An adult Black-browed Albatross preens its fuzzy chick on a nest in January 2020 on Saunders Island, one of the Falkland Islands east of Argentina. Saunders is an Important Bird Area that is home to 11,000 pairs of Black-browed Albatross, four penguin species, caracaras, and other birds. The Falklands archipelago hosts 70 percent (500,000 pairs) of the global Black-browed Albatross population. Pairs produce one egg a year, which hatch after about 70 days of incubation; a little over four months later, the chick fledges. Professional photographers Joe and Mary Ann McDonald have been visiting the Falklands for nearly 30 years, and the site where this image was taken, known as The Neck on Saunders, is one of their favorites.…

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